Stay mystified

Chapter One: Shift Change

YOUR POV:

You were halfway through convincing a six-year-old that stitches were not a government conspiracy when your phone buzzed in the side pocket of your child life bag. You ignored it. Not because you lacked curiosity. Because Miles Warren had one hand clamped beneath his chin, one suspicious eye fixed on the suture tray, and the posture of a man preparing to report Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center to whoever regulated betrayal, he was six. Furious enough to be forty-five.

“No one is sewing my face,” Miles announced.

Dr. Mel King looked up from the rolling stool near the bedside, where she had been reviewing his chart with the focused gentleness that made kids trust her faster than they expected to.

“No one is sewing your face without explaining it first,” you said.

Miles narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like trick words.”

“Fair,” you said, because it absolutely did.

His mother sat beside the bed with one hand hovering near his sneaker, wearing the exhausted, hopeful expression of a parent who had already tried snacks, bargaining, and one deeply unsuccessful promise involving extra screen time. Perlah stood near the counter, quietly arranging supplies with the calm efficiency of someone who had already survived three versions of this exact argument before lunch.

You smiled at Miles and reached into your bag. “I’m going to tell you the truth in kid words,” you said.

Miles’s hand loosened slightly. “Kid words?”

“Yep.” You pulled out two options and held them up. “You can hold the squishy dinosaur or the blue stress ball while we talk.”

Miles studied both with the gravity of someone choosing legal representation. Mel leaned back slightly on the stool, giving him time.

The dinosaur was green, soft, and vaguely cross-eyed. The stress ball was shaped like a globe and had seen better days.

Miles pointed with his free hand. “Dinosaur.”

“Strong choice,” you said, placing it gently in his lap.

Miles picked it up and squeezed. “What’s his name?”

You looked at the dinosaur with grave consideration. “That depends. Is he a doctor dinosaur or a regular dinosaur?”

Miles blinked. “A doctor.”

“Then Dr. Pickles,” you answered.

Perlah’s mouth twitched. Mel’s eyes brightened in immediate approval.

Miles looked down at the dinosaur, deeply unimpressed. “That’s a bad doctor name.”

“You’re right,” you said. “He’s had some complaints.”

Miles’s mother let out a soft, relieved breath that almost became a laugh.

Mel nodded once, as if this was clinically relevant. “Dr. Pickles is currently under peer review.”

Miles looked at Mel. “What does that mean?”

“It means other doctors are checking his work,” Mel said.

You nodded toward the dinosaur. “And his attitude.”

Miles squeezed Dr. Pickles again. His shoulders lowered by half an inch.

You counted that as progress. Your phone buzzed again. You ignored that, too.

Probably Jack. Definitely Jack. Which meant the text was probably about ginger ale, crackers, decaf coffee, the mint candies he had started keeping in places you had not known mint candies could be kept, or the fact that you had slept for roughly four hours and then stared at the ceiling as if it had personally betrayed you.

Jack had not been overbearing about the pregnancy. Not exactly. He had been Jack about it. Which meant he noticed everything, filed it away, and quietly rearranged the world by six inches so it bothered you less. He knew you still adored coffee and had accepted decaf with all the grace of a woman being exiled from her homeland. He knew you got jealous every time someone walked past with a real latte. He knew you had wanted fries for three days last week and then gagged the second a takeout container opened near you.

He knew the specific face you made when you were trying to decide if a food sounded possible or if your stomach had already declared war. He knew you were tired. He knew you were trying.

That was the part that got you.

Jack never treated the pregnancy like you were fragile. He treated it like you were doing something hard, and he wanted to be useful. You loved him so much that it made you deeply irritated.

“You said truth,” Miles reminded you.

“I did.” You shifted closer, keeping your voice calm. “First, Perlah is going to clean your chin. That part might feel cold and wet. It might sting a little because cuts are rude.”

Miles’s eyes moved to Perlah. Perlah held up the gauze to show him.

“Then,” you continued, “Dr. King is going to use medicine to help the skin around the cut get sleepy.”

Miles’s face tightened. “How?”

You did not soften the answer into a lie. Kids usually knew when adults were sanding off the sharp edges of truth. They could feel the missing parts. “With a poke,” you said.

Miles stiffened. His mother’s hand twitched toward him, then stopped.

You kept your attention on Miles. “It is okay to not like that part.”

“I don’t like that part,” Miles said immediately.

You nodded. “Excellent honesty.”

“It sounds terrible,” Miles grumbled.

“It is not my favorite design choice either,” you said.

Mel hugged the chart lightly to her chest, like she was restraining herself from laughing. “Medicine has several design flaws.”

Miles’s mouth twitched before he remembered to be outraged. “Medicine is stupid.”

“Sometimes,” you agreed. “But the poke is fast, and then the sleepy medicine helps the stitches hurt less.”

Miles looked at Mel. “How many stitches?”

Mel shifted closer on the stool, her expression open and serious. “Probably three.”

Miles stared at her. Mel held up three fingers. “Maybe four if your chin decides to be dramatic.”

Miles looked personally offended by his own chin.

You held up your fingers. “Here are your choices. You can watch what’s happening, or you can look at your mom. You can count, or I can tell you each step before it happens. You can squeeze Dr. Pickles, or you can squeeze your mom’s hand.”

Miles considered this. His mother leaned closer. “You can squeeze my hand as hard as you need, bud.”

Miles looked suspicious. “What if I break it?”

His mother smiled in that brave way parents did when they were trying not to cry in front of their children. “Then I’ll get stitches too.”

“That’s not funny,” Miles said.

“No,” she agreed. “It was medium funny.”

Miles gave this serious thought.

Your phone buzzed a third time.

Mel’s gaze flicked briefly toward your bag. Mel saw things. Not loudly. Not with the hungry curiosity of someone looking for gossip. She noticed the way a room shifted, the way a voice changed, the way someone’s hand moved toward pain before they remembered other people could see.

Quietly. Accurately. A little dangerously.

You reached into the front pocket of your bag for your laminated prep cards, and your fingers brushed the edge of a saltine sleeve. You paused. Jack. Of course. He had tucked crackers into the pocket that morning while you were standing in the kitchen, wearing one of his old shirts, staring mournfully at his real coffee like it had betrayed you by existing. Not the main pocket. That would risk crumbs near your stickers and fidgets. The outside pocket. Because Jack Abbot was an emotionally devastating maniac about practical details.

You had started dressing differently two weeks ago. Not dramatically. Nothing that would look like a confession to anyone who wasn’t paying close attention. Looser sweaters. Longer cardigans. Scrub tops that skimmed instead of clung. At first, it had been practical. Your body had changed quietly, then all at once. One morning, you had stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shirt lifted just enough to see the new curve beneath your ribs, and Jack had gone still in the doorway behind you. You had seen his face in the mirror. Not surprise. Not fear. Just love. So much of it, so sudden and bare, that your eyes filled before you could tell yourself not to be ridiculous.

Jack had crossed the room without a word and wrapped both arms around you from behind, one hand settling carefully over the place where your son was beginning to make himself known.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you had said, already crying.

His chin had brushed your shoulder. “Like what?”

“Like you’re happy,” you replied through tears.

Jack had gone quiet for a second. Then his thumb moved once over your stomach, barely there. “I am.”

That had made you cry harder, obviously. Jack had held you through it with the grim patience of a man accepting consequences for being too sincere before coffee.

Now, in Miles’s exam room, you tugged the hem of your cardigan lower without thinking. Mel’s eyes dropped for half a second to the visible corner of the cracker packet, then briefly to your cardigan. Then she looked back at Miles. She did not say anything. That was somehow worse.

You pulled out the prep cards and turned back to the bed. “Okay. This card shows what stitches look like when they’re still in the package.”

Miles leaned forward despite himself.

You showed him the card, then the next one. “These are not like sewing clothes,” you said. “No giant needle. No sewing machine. No one is turning you into pants.”

Miles stared at you and almost smiled. “Who would turn me into pants?”

“No one in this room,” Perlah said.

Miles glanced at Mel. Mel shook her head. “I’m not qualified for pants.”

Miles looked marginally reassured.

Something shifted low in your abdomen. Small. Strange. Not painful. Not sharp. Just enough to make you pause with your thumb resting against the edge of the laminated card. It was still new enough that your body had not figured out how to make it casual. A flutter. A roll. A quiet internal reminder from someone who had recently developed the habit of making his presence known at inconvenient times. Yesterday morning, while Jack was making breakfast, it had startled you badly enough that you had stopped mid-sentence.

Jack had gone still across the kitchen, butter knife in hand, eyes already on you. You had told him it was nothing. He had not believed you for one second.

Now, in Miles’s exam room, you let one hand drift to the lower edge of your cardigan for half a breath. Then you moved it away.

Mel was looking at the chart. Mostly. “You okay?” she asked.

You lifted the next card. “Yep.”

Mel nodded. She did not challenge you. She did not stare. She only tucked one foot under the stool and watched Miles again, giving you the grace of not making your body the center of the room.

You appreciated that. You also did not trust it.

Miles squeezed Dr. Pickles. “What if I cry?”

You looked back at him, grateful for the question. “Then you cry.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” you said. “Crying is allowed.”

Perlah stepped closer with the cleaning supplies. “I cry when my coffee order is wrong.”

A sharp little pang of envy hit before you could stop it. Coffee. Real coffee. Full-caffeine, glorious, beautiful coffee. You missed it with the kind of intensity usually reserved for long-lost lovers and discontinued favorite lipsticks.

Miles looked at Perlah as if this were possibly the most adult thing anyone had ever admitted to him.

Mel nodded. “I cried once because a patient gave me a sticker and told me I was doing a good job.”

Miles looked at you.

“I cried last week because someone walked past me with an everything bagel,” you said.

Mel’s eyes slid briefly toward you. Damn it.

Miles frowned. “You don’t like bagels?”

“I love bagels,” you said. That was the problem.

Mel’s gaze lingered for half a second longer than necessary before she turned back to Miles.

Miles looked between all of you. “Adults cry a lot.”

“Constantly,” Perlah said.

“Secretly,” Mel added.

You nodded. “In supply closets.”

Miles considered this and seemed to find it medically acceptable.

Perlah moved beside the bed. “I’m going to clean your chin now. Cold and wet first.”

Miles clutched Dr. Pickles. “No tricks?”

“No tricks,” Perlah said.

You held up the card. “Truth in kid words, remember?”

Miles looked at you. “Tell me each step.”

“I can do that.”

Perlah cleaned the wound. Miles hissed through his teeth but did not pull away. You kept your voice low and steady, narrating before each step, leaving space for him to react, reminding him that holding still did not mean pretending he liked it. Your phone buzzed again.

This time, even Miles noticed. “Is someone calling you?” he asked.

“Texting,” you said.

His brow furrowed. “Is it important?”

You thought of Jack’s probable message. Ginger ale still helping? Crackers are in the outside pocket. There’s decaf in your travel mug if you want it. No pressure. Just options.

Your throat warmed. “Someone’s just checking on me,” you said.

Perlah smiled to herself.

Miles nodded like he understood this on a personal level. “My grandma texts like that.”

You smiled. “Then your grandma and my person would probably get along.”

Mel’s gaze lifted again. Your person. You had not said husband. You rarely did at work. Not because you were hiding. Not exactly.

It just never came up in a way that needed correction, and Jack was private enough that announcing your marriage at the nurses’ station sounded like something he would endure with the expression of a man being asked to donate a kidney recreationally. Also, there was a small, terrible part of you that found the whole thing funny. PTMC knew you by your first name because kids did better with first names. Families did too.

You were Child Life, soft sweaters, a calm voice, and stickers tucked into every available pocket.

Jack was Abbot. Night shift. Dry voice. Trauma rooms. Military posture. Coffee so black it seemed medicinal.

People saw you both in fragments. Shift change. Late consults. Hallway overlap. The occasional staff meeting where Jack sat in the back and looked like every agenda item had personally offended him. Almost no one put the pieces together.

Robby knew, obviously. Dana knew too, because Dana knew everything worth knowing and had the good sense not to announce other people’s lives at the nurses’ station. But Robby was the one who enjoyed it. Robby had stood beside Jack in a suit and called it deeply unsettling when Jack adjusted his tie for the fourth time before the ceremony. He had been Jack’s best man, a title he brought up only when it would annoy Jack most.

Perlah finished cleaning Miles’s chin. “First part done,” Perlah said.

Miles opened one eye. “That kinda sucked.”

“It does suck,” you agreed.

Miles looked surprised. “You can say that?”

“Yes,” you said.

Miles processed this with the intensity of a philosopher in dinosaur socks.

Mel rolled closer on the stool. “Sleepy medicine next.”

Miles’s face tightened. You leaned in just enough to keep his focus. “Do you want to count, or do you want me to tell you when it’s done?”

Miles swallowed. “Tell me when it’s done.”

“Okay.” You placed Dr. Pickles more firmly under his hand. “You squeeze him. I’ll watch the medicine.”

Miles nodded once. His mother offered her hand. Miles took it. The poke happened fast. Miles cried. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a tight little burst of tears that made his mother’s face crumple and Perlah’s gaze soften.

You stayed with him through it. “That was the worst part,” you said when the needle was gone.

Miles sniffed hard. “That was terrible.”

You nodded. “It was.”

“I hated it,” Miles added.

“That’s okay,” you said. “You’re allowed.”

Miles looked down at Dr. Pickles, betrayed by medicine and possibly dinosaurs.

Mel gave the anesthetic a minute to work. Your phone buzzed again. Perlah set the used supplies aside. Mel glanced at your bag, then back at Miles. Only once. A quick thing. Barely anything. Still enough.

“You can check that,” Mel said gently.

“I’m good,” you said.

Mel hugged the chart closer to her chest. “It’s persistent.”

You smiled. “That’s one word for him.”

The second the sentence left your mouth, you felt Mel’s attention sharpen by a fraction. Not enough to make a thing of it. Enough. Miles’s mother leaned over to kiss the top of his head, giving you a small window. You reached into your bag and checked your phone. There were, in fact, four texts.

Jack: Ginger ale still helping?

Jack: Crackers are in the outside pocket if not.

Jack: No pressure. Just options.

Jack: Love you both. You’re doing good.

You stared at the last message for half a second too long. Love you both. You’re doing good. It was such a Jack text. Practical care stacked under one plain, devastating sentence. No exclamation points. No hearts. No little cartoon baby emoji. Just ginger ale, decaf, and love, organized in order of immediate usefulness.

You typed back with one thumb.

You: We’re okay. With a patient. Dr. Pickles is under peer review.

The response came almost immediately.

Jack: Sounds fair. A second later: Jack: Tell him to improve.

You bit the inside of your cheek. You had texted him a picture of the dinosaur earlier, with no explanation except "new attending on peds."

Jack had replied: Looks underqualified.

You locked your phone. Mel’s eyes were on Miles, but you knew better than to think she had missed the way your face softened. You tucked the phone away and picked up the sticker sheet. The stitches went better than Miles expected and worse than he wanted. Both things could be true. He squeezed Dr. Pickles hard enough to flatten the dinosaur’s head. He cried once more when the first stitch tugged, then got distracted by the fact that Mel had once fainted during a blood draw when she was twelve.

“You’re a doctor,” Miles said, scandalized.

“I recovered,” Mel said.

Miles eyed her. “But you fainted?”

“Briefly.”

You leaned closer to Miles. “She’s very brave now.”

Mel pulled off her gloves. “Medium brave.”

Miles nodded solemnly. “Medium brave counts.”

By the time Mel finished the last stitch, Miles looked exhausted, offended, and deeply proud of himself. A good combination. “You did it,” his mother whispered.

Miles looked at you. “Was I brave?”

You peeled a dinosaur sticker from the sheet. “Very.”

Miles frowned. You waited.

“Medium brave,” he corrected. “Not all the way.”

You pressed the sticker gently to the back of his hand. “Medium brave counts.”

Mel smiled as she reached for the discharge instructions on the computer. “Usually more than all-the-way brave,” she said.

Miles looked at her. “Why?”

Mel glanced over from the screen. “Because medium brave means you were scared and did it anyway.”

Miles looked down at Dr. Pickles. His chin was swollen. His cheeks were blotchy. His fingers were still tight around the dinosaur. But he smiled. Just a little.

You felt that tiny, internal shift again. A small roll low under your ribs, subtle enough that no one else should have noticed. You breathed through it.

Mel did not look at your stomach. She did not ask. She only handed you the sanitizer when you reached for it and watched your hand settle for one brief second against the lower curve beneath your cardigan before you caught yourself and moved.

That was the thing about Mel. She didn’t need to say anything to make you feel seen.

Miles’s mother thanked everyone three times. Mel gave wound care instructions. Perlah handed over extra gauze and the kind of practical reassurance parents needed after watching their children bleed. You promised Miles that Dr. Pickles could stay with him until discharge as long as he did not file another complaint with the medical board.

Miles hugged the dinosaur to his chest. “He’s on probation.”

“Fair,” you said.

You stepped out of the room with Mel a few minutes later, letting the door click softly behind you. The noise of the ER met you all at once. Phones. Monitors. A transport tech laughed near the desk. Someone called for an EKG. The familiar, relentless rhythm of PTMC refused to pause just because one six-year-old had survived the betrayal of stitches.

Mel stopped beside the counter and reached for the sanitizer. You checked the time. The day shift ended in thirty minutes. Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You glanced down.

Jack: I’m early. Five minutes out.

You smiled despite yourself.

Jack had always liked nights. He liked the dark. The smaller crew. The way the hospital narrowed down to alarms, instincts, and people who knew how to move without talking too much. He liked the solitude of it, the strange mercy of working while the rest of the world slept.

Or he had.

Lately, nights had started to feel different. Lately, nights meant leaving you at home with ginger ale on the nightstand, decaf in the cabinet, pillows wedged around your hips, and a body that could not decide what it wanted without punishing you for guessing wrong.

Jack still loved the work. You knew he did. But you also knew the way his hand lingered at your back before he left now. The way his eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize how tired you looked before he had to spend twelve hours away from it. The way he kissed you once, then again, like the second one might keep something safe that the first one could not. He hated leaving. You knew that, too.

Mel dried her hands with a paper towel beside you. You slipped your phone back into your pocket before she could see the screen. Mel didn’t ask who it was. She didn’t need to. Instead, her gaze moved once to the ginger ale beside your water bottle. Then, to the sleeve of saltines in your bag. Then to your face.

“You feeling okay today?” Mel asked. The question was gentle enough to pass as nothing.

You adjusted the strap of your bag on your shoulder. “Yeah.”

Mel nodded once, accepting the answer without quite believing it. “Good,” she said.

You looked at her for another beat. Mel only smiled mildly and tossed the paper towel into the trash. You turned toward the workstation to finish your notes, one hand resting briefly over the place where your son had rolled beneath your ribs. The day shift was almost over. Night shift was getting ready to begin. And no one in the ER knew that Jack Abbot was five minutes away from walking through those doors with decaf in one hand, plausible deniability in the other, and every intention of checking on his pregnant wife without anyone noticing.

The first thing you saw was the cup. Not Jack. Not technically. The cup came through the ambulance bay doors first, carried in one hand like a formal apology. It was not from the cafeteria. It was not from the lobby kiosk. It was definitely not hospital decaf, which tasted like someone had rinsed a coffee pot and asked you to be grateful. This cup had a sleeve. A stamped logo. A handwritten label. Fancy. Suspicious. Hopeful, which felt cruel.

Then Jack came through the doors behind it, already in dark scrubs, his badge clipped at his chest, his other hand wrapped around his own coffee. Real coffee. Actual coffee. Coffee with caffeine and dignity and a future. You stared at it with immediate, unreasonable resentment.

Then you looked at your husband. Jack’s eyes found yours from across the department the way they always did, quickly and without announcement. Face first. Then shoulders. Then the ginger ale beside your laptop. The sleeve of the crackers was half-tucked under your notebook. Your cardigan, loose and soft over the curve you had spent the last two weeks pretending was not becoming obvious.

His gaze dropped for less than a second. You felt it anyway. Then he crossed the ER like he was only coming in for the night shift. Like he had not texted you three separate options in the last hour and found a new brand of decaf because you had said, once, half-asleep and miserable against his pillow, that you missed coffee so much you could cry. He set the fancy cup beside your laptop. ‘Decaf. Don’t yell until after trying’ was written in black marker across the lid.

Your throat did something ridiculous. Jack’s face did not change. “New one,” he said.

You looked at the cup, then at him. “You bought me fancy decaf coffee?”

His mouth barely moved. “Try it.”

You picked up the cup with both hands because it was warm and because your body, traitorous and exhausted, had already decided that warmth was reason enough to hope. The first sip was cautious. Defensive. You expected disappointment. You expected hot brown sadness. You expected the thin, bitter lie every decaf had been telling you for the past month and a half.

Instead, the coffee was warm. Smooth. Rich. Good. Actually, unfairly, wonderfully good.

Your eyes closed before you could stop them. “Oh my God,” you said.

Jack went still. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Not unless they knew him. Not unless they knew the exact way his body held itself when he was waiting for the verdict on something that mattered more than he wanted it to.

“Yeah?” he asked.

You nodded, still holding the cup close. “Jack.” His eyes stayed on you.  “It’s good.” The words came out smaller than you meant them to. Grateful in a way coffee probably did not deserve.

Except it was not just coffee. It was a normal thing. One thing your body had not rejected. One thing that tasted as if it belonged to the version of you who used to drink real coffee without negotiating with your stomach first. Jack understood that. Of course he did. That was the best part.

His shoulders settled by a fraction. “Good.”

You looked down at the lid again, and a laugh caught in your throat. “I wasn’t going to yell,” you said.

Jack gave you a look.

“I was going to emotionally object,” you corrected.

“Mm,” he hummed.

“With dignity,” you added.

Jack nodded once. “Sure.”

You took another sip, and this time you did not bother hiding how much you liked it. You were too tired to perform indifference, too relieved to make him work for it. “Thank you,” you said.

Jack’s expression went quieter. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

Behind the counter, Santos lowered the chart in her hand. Slowly. “Oh, no,” she said.

You closed your eyes. Jack did not move.

Santos pointed at the cup. “That was a moment.”

Jack looked at her. “It was coffee.”

“It was not coffee.” Santos’s eyes narrowed. “It was emotionally loaded coffee.”

Robby made a pleased sound from the workstation behind her. “Excellent band name.”

Jack’s gaze cut toward him. “Don’t help.”

“I’m helping myself,” Robby said.

Dana did not look up from the discharge papers in front of her, but the corner of her mouth moved like she had decided not to be held responsible for anyone in the department. Mel, who had been reviewing something on her tablet near the counter, glanced between you and Jack with quiet interest. Not nosy. Not loud. Just watching.

Santos was loud enough for both of them. “Since when does Abbot bring Child Life specialty beverages?” she asked.

Jack picked up his own coffee. “Since Child Life suffered enough.”

You took another sip. “I support this policy.”

Santos pointed at you. “You’re too happy. That’s suspicious.”

“I’m drinking good decaf for the first time in weeks,” you said. “My joy is proportionate.”

Robby leaned one hip against the workstation. “Strong argument.”

Jack looked at him again. Robby lifted both hands. “I’m neutral.”

“You have never been neutral in your life,” Dana said.

Robby nodded once. “Also fair.”

Jack’s real coffee drifted near you when he shifted his weight, and your stomach made one small, sour complaint. You did not move. You did not even think you changed expression. Jack noticed anyway. He moved his cup to the far side of the counter without looking at it. Small. Quiet. Automatic. Your fingers tightened around your decaf. Mel noticed. You saw her notice. Her eyes flicked to Jack’s hand, then back to your face, and something thoughtful crossed her expression before she politely looked down at her tablet again.

Santos missed none of it. Her gaze sharpened.

Jack lowered his voice, but not enough to be secretive. Just enough to make the space between you feel smaller. “How bad?”

You knew what he meant. Not work. Not Miles. Not the coffee. The nausea. The hunger that kept arriving with disgust tucked beneath it. The way your body had started treating dinner like a negotiation no one had authorized. “Manageable,” you said.

Jack’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.

You sighed. “Annoying.”

He almost smiled, “Closer.”

“The bagel smell in the break room was a crime scene,” you grumbled.

His mouth twitched. “That bad?”

You nodded. “I considered filing charges.”

Jack nodded as if this were a reasonable escalation. “What sounds possible for dinner?”

You looked down at the coffee in your hands. Good coffee. Actual good coffee. Decaf, tragically, but not a punishment. Not a thin, bitter insult. Good enough that your whole body seemed confused by the relief of wanting something and being able to have it.

“Toast,” you admitted.

Jack nodded once. “Toast is good.”

“Toast is barely dinner,” you said with a frown.

Jack looked at you so sincerely that your chest squeezed tight. “Toast is dinner if it stays down.”

Your throat tightened. That was the thing about Jack. He did not make ‘possible’ sound like failure. He just lowered the bar until you could step over it without shame.

“Butter and honey,” you said.

His expression softened. “Irish butter’s in the fridge.”

You looked at him. “You got more?”

He nodded. “Aldi had it.”

“You went to Aldi?” you asked, eyes bright.

Jack shrugged. “I survived.”

“You hate Aldi.” Your eyebrows rose.

“I hate the parking lot,” Jack corrected you.

You couldn’t stop your smile, “And the cart quarter.”

Jack's eyes narrowed, “The cart quarter is an aggressive system.”

You laughed before you could help it, one hand settling briefly against your cardigan when your son shifted low and strange, as if he had opinions about grocery logistics. Jack saw. Of course, he saw. His eyes dropped for half a second, then came back to your face. “Still okay?” he asked.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

His voice stayed low. “Good honey’s on the counter.”

You inhaled sharply, “The farmers market one?”

“The one you said tasted like flowers and sunshine,” Jack replied.

You stared at him for one second too long.

Santos put the chart down. “Hold on.”

Jack did not look away from you quickly enough.

Apparently, that was Santos’s final straw. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

You took another sip of coffee.

Santos pointed at Jack. “You know what butter she has.”

Jack’s face stayed calm. “Most kitchens have butter.”

Santos glared, “Do not insult me.”

Robby made a quiet, delighted noise.

Santos’s finger stayed aimed at Jack. “You said Irish butter. From Aldi. Like a man who has personally fought the parking lot and lost.”

Jack’s brow furrowed, “I didn’t lose.”

“You know where her farmers' market honey is.” Santos continued.

“It’s on the counter,” Jack said with a nod.

Santos stared at him. “Again, not helping your case.”

Dana finally looked up. “It is good honey.”

Santos turned on her. “You stay out of this.” Dana’s eyebrows lifted. Santos exhaled sharply. “Actually, no. You’re involved now. Is this normal?”

Dana glanced once at you, then at Jack, then at the coffee in your hands. “For them?” she said. “Yes.” The department went quiet for half a beat. Robby’s smile became openly dangerous. Jack looked at Dana. Dana returned to her paperwork like she had not just thrown a match into gasoline.

Santos’s eyes widened. “For them?”

You looked down at your coffee. Jack took a drink from his. Neither of you answered. Mel hugged her tablet a little closer to her chest. “Oh,” she said softly.

Santos snapped her attention to Mel. “Oh, what?”

Mel’s cheeks colored. “Nothing.”

“No, that was an oh,” Santos replied, eyes narrowed.

Mel shrugged. “It was an observational oh.”

Robby nodded. “Clinically, much worse.”

Jack set his coffee down. “Robby.”

Robby folded his arms. “What? I’m supporting the diagnostic process.”

Santos pointed between you and Jack. “Oh, my God.”

You took another sip. Jack’s jaw shifted like he knew exactly where this was going and had decided to let it happen.

Santos’s eyes narrowed. “You’re dating.”

The words landed in the middle of the nurses’ station with the subtlety of a dropped tray. Perlah, passing behind Santos with a stack of supplies, slowed for exactly one step before deciding she valued her peace and kept walking. Mel’s eyes widened. Robby leaned back against the workstation, delighted in a way that did not bode well for anyone.  “Interesting theory,” he said.

Santos pointed at him without looking. “You know something.”

“I know many things,” Robby said, nodding wisely.

Her eyes narrowed, “About this.”

“Especially about this,” Robby agreed.

Jack’s eyes cut toward him. Robby smiled. “Sorry. Department morale.”

Santos turned back to you. “Are you dating Abbot?”

You looked at Jack. Jack looked at you. There was a very long second where neither of you spoke, not because you were trying to hide anything, but because the actual answer was so much funnier than the question. “No,” you said.

Santos blinked. “No?”

“No,” Jack said.

Santos stared at both of you. “That was too synchronized.”

“Still true,” Jack said.

She threw up her hands, “Then why do you know her butter?”

You lifted the coffee. “It’s very memorable butter.”

Santos pointed at you. “I do not like you right now.”

You nodded solemnly. “That seems fair.”

Mel looked from you to Jack again, her expression caught somewhere between surprised and delighted. “So you’re not dating?”

Jack picked up his coffee. “No.”

Mel’s eyebrows drew together. “But the coffee?”

“It’s decaf,” Jack said.

Santos made a strangled sound. “That is not an answer.”

Dana turned a page. “It is one if you’ve met him.”

You smiled into your cup. Jack saw that too. The smile. The way you were trying to hide it. The way you were failing because the coffee was good, and he had gone to Aldi for butter, and your son was rolling around like he had decided to make himself known during the least convenient window of time. His face softened before he caught it.

Santos saw that too. She went very still. Then she pointed at him again. “You have a face.”

Jack stared at her. “Most people do.”

“No.” Santos stepped closer. “You have a specific face.”

Robby pressed his lips together. Jack looked unimpressed. “That cleared nothing up.”

“You looked soft.”

“Santos,” Mel said, but she sounded like she was trying not to laugh.

“He did,” Santos insisted. “He looked soft at Child Life.”

You glanced at Jack. “Congratulations.”

His mouth twitched. “Thank you.”

Santos threw a hand out. “See? Vibe.”

Dana sighed. “This is why I don’t work nights.”

“You work all the time,” Robby said.

Dana looked at him. “And yet I avoid this.” The overhead speakers crackled, and someone called for environmental services near trauma two. The ER resumed around you in pieces. Monitors beeped. A printer coughed out discharge paperwork. Someone laughed near the medication room. Jack glanced toward the board. Night shift was beginning to swallow him. You could feel it happening. The department reaching for him. The trauma rooms and consults and handoffs and all the things that would keep him here while you went home to the quiet house with the new loaf of bread on the counter and good honey waiting beside it.

His gaze came back to you. “I’ve got four minutes,” he said.

“Luxury,” you replied.

He almost smiled. “Can I walk you out?”

Your chest warmed before you could stop it. “You have handoff.”

Jack shrugged. “Robby’s still pretending to work.”

Robby lifted one hand without looking away from the show. “Rude. Accurate.”

Jack held your gaze. “Four minutes.”

You smiled despite yourself. “Okay.”

Santos made a sound. “No.”

Jack looked at her. “Problem?”

Her eyes narrowed, “Yes, problem. You cannot say you are not dating and then walk her out with your emotionally loaded coffee situation.”

“It’s her coffee,” Jack said.

“That does not make it less loaded,” Santos replied.

You started gathering your things before Santos could build a formal case. Your notebook went into your Child Life bag. The laminated prep cards slid into their folder. Dr. Pickles, temporarily retired from active duty after Miles’s successful stitches, stayed tucked in the side pocket.

Jack watched your hands. Not hovering. Not taking over. Just ready, the way he always was.

When you reached for the bag strap, his eyes dropped to it. “Can I?” he asked.

The question was quiet enough that it was mostly yours. You handed him the strap. Jack took the bag and settled it onto his shoulder like it belonged there. Santos stared. Mel’s mouth parted slightly. Robby looked delighted enough to require supervision.

Dana did not look up, but she said, “Careful, Abbot. That bag has stickers.”

Jack adjusted the strap. “I’m aware.”

Santos’s voice went flat. “You’re aware.”

You picked up your coffee. “There are a lot of stickers.”

Mel smiled. “That tracks.”

Santos pointed between you again. “You are all hearing this, right?”

Robby pushed away from the workstation. “I hear many things.”

“You knew he carried her bag?”

Robby’s grin widened. “I know many things.”

“Stop saying that,” she snapped.

Robby’s grin turned wicked. “No.”

Jack looked toward the elevator, then back at you. “Ready?” You nodded. The movement made your back complain in a low, annoying pulse. You must have shifted your weight more carefully than you meant to, because Jack’s hand lifted a fraction at his side. He did not touch you. Not here. Not in front of the whole department while Santos was watching like she had been personally assigned to solve the mystery of your entire life. But he wanted to.

You could feel that too. “I’m good,” you said softly.

Jack’s eyes stayed on yours for one second longer. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

Santos looked at Mel. “They are absolutely dating.”

“They said they’re not,” Mel said, though her voice had gone thoughtful.

Santos narrowed her eyes. “People lie.”

Dana picked up her bag from the counter. “Sometimes people answer the question asked.”

Santos turned slowly toward her. Dana’s expression stayed mild. Robby made a sound like he was enjoying the evening more than anyone had a right to. Jack started toward the elevators with your Child Life bag on his shoulder and your four-minute goodbye ticking down beside him. You fell into step at his side.

Behind you, Santos made a sound. “Nope,” she said.

You glanced back. She had grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and was already following.

Mel looked between Santos and the elevator. “Are we all going down?”

“I am,” Santos said. “For reasons.”

Robby pushed away from the workstation. “I’m done for the day.”

Dana picked up her bag. “I’m also leaving before this becomes my problem.”

“Too late,” Robby said. Dana ignored him.

Cassie appeared from the hallway with her keys in hand, Langdon beside her, still zipping his coat. “Are people leaving?” Cassie asked.

Santos pointed toward Jack. “Yes. Quietly. Together. Suspiciously.”

Jack did not stop walking. “Shift change,” he said.

Robby smiled. “Love this place.”

By the time the elevator doors opened, all of you had somehow become a group. You. Jack. Santos. Mel. Robby. Dana. Langdon. Cassie. It was too many people for one elevator, and exactly the wrong number of witnesses for a secret that had never really been a secret. Santos got in first, like proximity might help her solve whatever crime she had decided Jack was committing. Mel followed, glancing between you and Jack with careful, growing curiosity. Robby stepped in behind her, already wearing the expression of a man who knew exactly how this ended and had chosen not to save anyone. Dana entered last with the resigned calm of someone who had seen more than enough hospital nonsense to recognize when nonsense had become inevitable. Langdon and Cassie squeezed in at the last second, both still half in their coats, both clearly unsure why Santos looked like she was about to interrogate someone under oath. The elevator doors slid shut. Jack stood beside you with your Child Life bag on his shoulder. The bag had three cartoon stickers on the front pocket, two laminated keychains, one slightly crushed granola bar in the side pouch, and Dr. Pickles’s green squishy dinosaur head peeking out from the top. Jack Abbot, night-shift attending, former combat medic, allergic to unnecessary bonding, carried it as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Which it was to you.

Not, apparently, to everyone else. The elevator hummed down one level. Santos looked at Jack’s shoulder. Then at you. Then back at Jack’s shoulder. “I’m just saying,” she said, “this is weird.”

Jack did not look at her. “Most things are.”

“No.” Santos pointed at your bag. “This is specific weird.”

Robby made a pleased sound. “Specific weird is my favorite kind.”

Dana closed her eyes. Mel pressed her lips together. You took another sip of your decaf, which remained warm and good, and therefore, the only reason you had not started openly laughing. Jack’s gaze slid toward you. Just briefly. That was all. But you knew him well enough to read it. ‘Careful’, his eyes said. You lifted your brows. ‘I am behaving beautifully’, your face said back. His mouth moved at the corner. Santos saw it.

She stepped forward as the elevator doors opened into the parking level. “Oh, absolutely not,” she said. Jack walked out first because he was closest to the doors. You followed with your coffee in hand, the cool garage air brushing across your face. It smelled like concrete, rainwater, and old exhaust, sharp enough to wake you up a little. Somewhere farther down the row, a car chirped unlocked. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Your back ached in that deep, annoying way that felt less like pain and more like your body had reorganized itself without asking permission. You shifted your weight as you walked. Jack noticed. He slowed half a step.

You did not look at him when you said, “I’m good.”

Jack raised a brow. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it loudly,” you replied.

Robby coughed behind you. Santos’s footsteps stuttered. Mel made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.

Jack looked down at you. “I’ll work on that.”

You smiled softly. “No, you won’t.”

“No,” he said. “Probably not.”

Santos pointed at both of you as she walked. “See? Dating.”

“We’re still not dating,” Jack said.

Robby’s smile turned bright enough to become a workplace hazard. You started walking towards your car, which was only two rows away, and you were suddenly very aware of the butter in your refrigerator, the honey on your counter, the toast waiting at home, and the fact that your husband was on the edge of being swallowed by the night shift. The group followed. Of course, they followed. Santos had the look of a woman who had found blood in the water and also somehow filed an HR complaint about it in her head. At your car, Jack shifted your bag carefully off his shoulder and handed it to you.

“Can I have that?” he asked.

You smiled and traded him the coffee for the bag so you could dig out your keys. He held the cup without comment, thumb resting against the sleeve, watching you search the pocket where your keys were supposed to be and definitely were not. You frowned. Jack reached into the smaller front pocket without looking. He pulled out your keys. You looked at him.

He held them out. “Front pocket,” he said.

Your eyes narrowed. “I know where my keys are.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Eventually.”

Behind you, Santos made a sound of actual physical pain. Mel whispered, “Oh.”

Langdon looked at Cassie. “What did I miss?”

Cassie’s eyes were huge. “A lot, apparently.”

You unlocked the car. Jack handed your coffee back to you. “Text me when you’re home,” he said.

“You’ll probably be in trauma one, saving lives,” you replied.

Jack grinned. “Text me anyway.”

Your chest warmed. “Bossy,” you said.

Jack’s face softened, small and private. “Accurate.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but your son shifted low and strange again, a flutter turning into something just solid enough to make you pause. It was not painful. Just new. Still new enough that wonder arrived before you could protect yourself from it. Your hand hovered near your cardigan and stopped there. You did not press. You did not draw attention. You only breathed once, slowly. Jack’s eyes dropped. Half a second. No more. When they came back to your face, his expression had changed. Barely. Enough. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said, softer. “Just ready to be home.”

He nodded. The department pulled at him from three floors above you. You could feel that too. The invisible hook of night shift. Handoff. Trauma bays. The board. The particular gravity of people needing him. But for this second, in the parking garage, he stayed.

His hand settled briefly at the small of your back. Familiar. Automatic. Yours.

You leaned up without thinking, and he bent down to meet you.

The kiss was quick. Not dramatic. Not performative.

Just the warm press of his mouth against yours before one of you went home and the other went back inside. A married goodbye. The kind that had happened in kitchens, doorways, airport drop-offs, grocery store parking lots, and once in the middle of a hotel hallway when Robby had yelled that he was happy for you but also deeply uncomfortable. Jack pulled back first, but not far. His thumb brushed once against your back before he let his hand fall.

Behind you, something clattered against concrete. Probably Santos’s keys. Possibly Santos’s entire understanding of the world.

“I’m sorry,” Santos said.

You turned. Santos stood ten feet away, mouth open, keys now on the ground near her shoe. Mel had gone perfectly still beside her. Langdon looked like someone had switched the language on a monitor and expected him to interpret the rhythm strip anyway. Cassie had both hands pressed over her mouth. Dana looked at the ceiling like she had requested one quiet shift change and been personally denied. Robby looked like Christmas had come early and brought catering with it.

Santos pointed at Jack. “You said you weren’t dating.”

Jack’s hand stayed near your back. “We’re not.”

“You kissed her,” she replied.

Jack nodded. “I did.”

“So you’re dating,” she replied, gesturing between the two of you.

“No,” Jack said. “We’re not dating anymore.”

Santos blinked. Mel blinked. Cassie dropped her hands. “Anymore?”

You looked up at Jack, then shrugged. “What’s it been, six years?”

“Seven in May,” Jack said.

“Seven in May,” Robby said at the same time.

The garage went silent. You turned slowly toward Robby. Robby lifted both hands. “What? I was there.”

Santos’s mouth opened. “You were where?”

Jack sighed. “Don’t.”

Robby’s smile became catastrophic. “Best man.”

Santos stared at him. “Best man?” she repeated.

Robby nodded. “Great suit. Very emotional day.”

Jack looked at him. “You cried.”

Robby pointed at Jack. “Allegedly.”

You lifted your coffee. “There are photos.”

“Hostile witness,” Robby said.

You looked at Jack. Jack looked back at you, his face soft in a way he probably would have hidden if he had remembered anyone else was there.

Santos made a sound. Not a word. A sound. Then she looked at Jack. Then at you. Then at Jack again. “You’re married?”

Jack nodded once. “Yep.”

You nodded too. “Yep.”

The garage erupted.

“YOU’RE MARRIED?” Santos’s voice bounced off three levels of concrete.

Jack winced. “Inside voice.”

“No.” Santos stabbed a finger toward him. “Absolutely not. You do not get an inside voice right now. You lost inside voice privileges when you kissed Child Life in a parking garage and revealed a seven-year marriage.”

Langdon stared at Jack. “You’re married married?”

Jack looked at him. “As opposed to?”

Robby leaned closer to Langdon. “Spiritually married. Recreationally married. Trial subscription married.”

Jack’s head turned slowly. “Stop.”

Robby smiled. “Never.”

Cassie looked between you and Jack, eyes bright with shock. “Wait, before PTMC?”

You nodded. “Before PTMC.”

Mel’s expression softened. “That’s why the coffee.”

Santos spun toward her. “Do not act like the coffee was enough information.”

“It was emotionally loaded coffee,” Cassie said.

Robby pointed at her. “She gets it.”

Jack’s eyes closed for half a second. Dana adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “This could have been an email.”

Santos turned on her. “You knew.”

Dana looked at her. “Yes.”

Santos threw both hands out. “Why does everyone know?”

“Everyone does not know,” Dana said.

“I didn’t know!” Santos exclaimed.

Dana’s expression stayed perfectly calm. “Then, everyone clearly does not know.”

Mel pressed her lips together. Cassie turned away, shoulders shaking.

Santos pointed at Dana. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Dana’s eyebrows lifted. “It was not my marriage to announce.” Santos stared at her. Dana added, “Also, you never asked.”

Jack’s mouth twitched. Santos looked personally betrayed by the entire universe. Then she turned on Robby. “You,” she said.

Robby put a hand to his chest. “Me?”

She glared at him. “You knew for seven years.”

“Technically longer. They dated before that,” Robby replied.

Jack stared at him. Robby shrugged. “Context matters.”

Santos took one step toward him. “You watched me investigate Aldi butter like an idiot.”

Robby grinned, “You were doing great.”

“I hate you.” Santos snapped.

Mel looked at you, still gentle despite the chaos. “How did you meet?”

That quieted the group by a fraction. Not completely. But enough. You felt Jack beside you, the small shift in his body. Not discomfort exactly. Something older. Something private. Your hand tightened around your coffee. “Military hospital,” you said.

Mel’s face softened. Cassie’s expression changed too, curiosity gentling into something more careful. Santos, to her credit, did not make a joke. Jack looked toward the far end of the garage, then back at you. You smiled a little. “He was lurking outside room 417.”

Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “Lurking.”

“You were standing in the hallway pretending not to hover,” you said to him.

Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I was waiting.”

“For what?” you asked. He paused.

Robby leaned in. “Careful. This is how history gets written.”

Jack gave him a look. You looked back at Mel. “I was helping a little girl get ready to see her dad after he’d been hurt. Jack saw us.”

Mel’s eyes warmed. Cassie pressed a hand to her chest. “That’s actually really sweet.”

“He asked someone who I was,” you added.

Robby nodded immediately. “Immediately.”

Jack looked at him. “You weren’t there.”

“I know Miller,” Robby said. “Miller told the story better.”

Jack’s jaw shifted. “Miller told the story worse.”

You smiled. “Then he asked me for coffee.”

Santos squinted at Jack. “You asked someone out?”

Jack stared at her. “Yes.”

“Out loud?” she continued.

Jack looked confused. “How else would I do it?”

Robby opened his mouth. Jack pointed at him without looking. “No.”

Robby closed his mouth with visible effort. Langdon looked at you. “And he proposed?”

“No,” Santos said, already turning back to Jack with renewed offense. “No, wait. I need this. How did Abbot propose? Did he do it with words? Did he make eye contact? Did he file paperwork?”

Jack looked toward the elevator. “I have to go back inside.”

“Absolutely not,” Santos said. “You owe us seven years of lore.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “I owe you nothing.”

“You owe me emotional damages,” she snapped back.

Dana started toward her car. “You’ll survive.”

“I might not,” Santos called after her.

Dana did not turn around. “Then update your emergency contact.”

Robby laughed. Jack did not. Mel looked at you, smiling now. “How did he propose?”

You glanced at Jack. His face had gone quieter, the line of his mouth held flat like he knew what you were about to say and wanted very badly to stop you, but not enough to actually do it. You loved him so much that it made you a little stupid. “He put it on the grocery list,” you said.

Santos stopped moving. “I’m sorry?”

Robby’s face lit up. “Oh, this is good.”

Jack looked at him. “Do not.”

Robby ignored him completely. “Strong list.”

Cassie whispered, “The grocery list?”

You nodded. “At home. In the kitchen. He asked me to look it over and see if he missed anything.”

Mel’s smile grew. Langdon blinked. “And he wrote ‘proposal’ on it?”

“Not proposal,” you said.

Jack’s expression softened before he could stop it. You looked down at your coffee. “He wrote, ‘marry me?’” You said. “With a question mark.”

Cassie made a soft noise. Mel pressed the tablet to her chest. “That’s beautiful.”

Santos pointed at Jack. “You proposed with errands.”

Jack’s jaw shifted. “She said yes.”

Robby nodded gravely. “Again. Strong list.”

You smiled. “There was coffee on it, too.”

“Of course there was,” Dana called from near her car.

Santos dragged both hands down her face. “This entire department is a conspiracy.”

“It’s not a conspiracy,” Mel said, though she was still smiling.

Santos turned to her. “You are only saying that because you’re happy for them.”

“I am happy for them,” Mel replied.

Jack looked at you then, and the noise around you thinned for a second. His eyes moved over your face. Tired. Nauseous. Amused. Softened by good decaf and too much attention and the strange tenderness of watching your private life become public in one loud, ridiculous burst. He stepped closer. “Enough,” he said, not exactly to the group. To you, maybe. For you.

Santos opened her mouth. Jack looked at her. She shut it. Mostly.

He turned back to you. “Go home. Eat your toast.”

Santos pointed weakly. “See? Again with the toast.”

You opened your car door. “Goodnight, Santos.”

“The toast was married toast,” she glared at you.

“All toast is married if you use the good honey,” Robby said.

Dana opened her car door. “I’m leaving before this gets worse.”

“It can get worse?” Langdon asked.

Robby smiled. “Always.”

Jack handed you the coffee one last time, his fingers brushing yours around the cup.

“Text me when you’re home,” he said.

You nodded once. “I will.”

“And after toast,” he added.

You smiled. “Bossy.”

His gaze held yours. “Married,” he corrected quietly.

Your chest went warm. “Apparently,” you said.

His mouth softened. For a second, you wanted to stay there. To keep him in the parking garage under bad fluorescent lights with your bag in his hand and the whole department spinning around the two of you. To have one more minute before the ER took him back. But the night shift was already waiting. And you had toast to make. And a son the ER did not know about yet, shifting softly beneath your ribs like he had survived his first family scandal and found it unimpressive.

You slid into the driver’s seat. Jack shut the door carefully after you were settled. Through the open window, Santos was still staring at him like she had discovered a new organ. “I have follow-up questions,” she said.

Jack nodded once. “I’m sure.”

She pointed at him. “Tomorrow.”

“No,” Jack said immediately.

“Yes.” Santos snapped back.

Dana’s voice carried from across the row. “Tomorrow will be worse if you fight it.”

Robby lifted a hand. “I have photos.”

Jack’s head turned slowly. “Do not,” he said.

Robby smiled at you over Jack’s shoulder. “I have selected favorites.”

You laughed as you set your coffee in the cup holder. Jack looked pained. Santos looked reborn. Mel looked delighted. Cassie was already whispering something to Langdon, who still seemed stuck on the phrase grocery list. And you realized, with your good decaf beside you and your husband standing in the parking garage in his dark scrubs, that PTMC had finally caught up to a story that had been yours for years.

Santos pointed at Jack one last time. “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”

Jack glanced toward the elevators, already half-pulled back to work. Then he looked at you. His mouth moved, barely. “You never asked,” he said.

Santos stared at him. “That,” she said, “is the most annoying thing you have ever said.”

Robby leaned closer to your window. “Top five.”

Jack looked at him. “Go home.”

Robby pushed off your car with a grin. “Yes, sir.”

You started the engine. Jack stepped back, but his eyes stayed on yours until you pulled out of the space. In the rearview mirror, you saw him standing there for one more second, surrounded by people who suddenly knew one of the truest things about him. Then the elevator doors opened. Night shift called him back.

And Jack Abbot went.

Being a senior resident at one of the most highly visited emergency departments in the country was not a cake walk by any means. Being a senior year resident at said ED, which was thousands of miles away from the home you’d known for the previous decades of your life, and struggling every day to not completely burn yourself out or run out of money was exhausting to say the least.

When you’d woken up on what you had hoped would be a restful and much needed day off, you hadn’t been expecting any mail- it was a Sunday after all. 

But nevertheless, a thin sealed letter had been stuffed underneath your apartment door, now resting half exposed at the threshold amidst a pile of shoes and the coat you’d tossed aside last night instead of taking it the extra ten feet away to your hamper. 

You’d fetched it off of the floor and tossed it carelessly onto your kitchen counter, opting to pour a day-old cup of coffee from the pot and revive it in the microwave before even considering reading the crumpled letter. 

You’d immediately wished you’d just forgotten about it altogether.

Dear Tenant,

This notice has been sent to all relevant parties affected by the upcoming construction developments. 

As previously notified, the complex is undergoing extensive renovation. As a part of this effort, the top floor of the building will be turned into updated studio apartments- this will entail a complete demolition and construction of the new living spaces. 

Construction is scheduled to begin September 1st and be completed by early January. 

All current tenants will be required to move out of the building during construction, but will be given priority access to applying for residency in the new units. 

All tenants must be completely moved out by August 20th- effective immediately. 

Please reach out to the building manager with any questions or concerns. 

You weren’t sure how many times you read the words typed in heartless, bold font, eyes skipping up and down over the paper as your stomach dropped. Was this some sort of sick prank?

(A few texts to the handful of neighbors you knew confirmed that, no, this was in fact not a joke. It was unfortunately very real.)

Well fuck.

(A frantic phone call to your landlord only further confirmed your misfortune, and assured you that he did not care even a little bit that you and the five other tenants on the top floor of your apartment building were about to be without a place to live.)

Well, fuck.

Like any sensible adult with little to no means of moving anywhere else in the city, no idea how to find said new living space mid-July, when most leases were already signed and sealed- you tossed the paper violently down on your cluttered kitchen table and effectively ignored it for the rest of the day.

Or at least you’d tried. After about an hour of scrolling on the couch and hoping the situation would simply disappear if you ignored it hard enough, the reality that you had hardly over a month to find somewhere to live really set in.

Samira texted you about twenty minutes later, interrupting your doom spiral.

Mira: Hey! Victoria and I are going to that new Thai place after she gets off tonight if you still wanted to come :) LMK

You probably didn’t need to spend money going out to dinner given the new development in your already strained financial life.

You: yess! what time

“So I have six weeks to find somewhere that I can actually afford to live.” You finished explaining your current predicament to the two girls sitting across from you in the packed restaurant. Victoria had been staring at you with a completely unconcealed look of worry and borderline terror since you’d started talking.

“That’s like, impossible.” She spoke, shaking her head matter of factly. Completely unhelpful, but true. You nodded slowly, closing your eyes. Yeah, it kinda was.

“I’m so sorry.” Samira added, shaking her own head and staring down at her plate in thought before speaking again. “Have you asked around to see if anyone at the hospital has an extra room, at least like a temporary thing?” She suggested, trying to sound hopeful. “I think it’s worked out pretty well for Santos and Whitaker.” She shrugged.

Victoria still lived at home, and Samira was currently trying to figure out a less than ideal living situation with her mother herself, or either of them would have been willing to give you a place to stay.

“That’s a good idea.” You sigh. “I don’t know, it’s just so awkward. I can’t even think of anyone that would.” You sighed, twirling a too big bite onto your fork. “Maybe Dana will adopt me.” You conclude with a snort before shoving the noodles into your mouth.

To their credit, both girls give you a somewhat encouraging nod and shrug.

The next morning, you walked your commute to the hospital running a mental list of potential good samaritans from your group of colleagues. Samira was right, Trinity and Dennis had seemed to fall together perfectly as roommates. If you hadn’t heard so much gossip about how many extra visitors that apartment constantly had, you’d consider asking to crash on their couch- but no, Dennis had come to work one too many times with exhausted eyes and a desire to avoid Garcia like the plague. They didn’t need to throw anyone else from this hospital into the mix.

With Samira and Victoria already ruled out, and your hesitation to even bring it up to Mel (she would likely tell you to take her own bed, but she already had more than enough on her plate), your hope was dwindling rapidly as you approached the doors of the ED. A department of overworked doctors was not the best place to be looking for such a large favor, but these were the only people in Pittsburgh that you actually knew.

With a resigned sigh, you slipped past the desk in the waiting room and walked on autopilot legs to stow your things in the back before beginning rounds. Not realising the dark cloud you must’ve been carrying with you and completely lost in thought, you almost didn’t hear Dana greeting you from the nurses station.

Turning dazedly toward the sound of her calling your name, you meet the concerned gaze of the woman and a sympathetically smiling Samira standing beside her. You gave a wave and halfhearted smile as you continued on. You needed to clear your anxious mind and prepare for the day ahead, but it was hard to shake the burden weighing on you. Every passing moment of reality was making the ball of stress in your chest grow tighter. Taking a composing moment in front of your locker, you inhaled steadying breaths and reminded yourself that things usually had a way of working out. Right?

You headed back to the nurses station to begin offloading the night shift and met Samira and Dana still standing there, now joined by tired Dr. Abbot, ready to head home from his night shift. They were all wearing thoughtful frowns as Samira finished speaking, hands moving in the air in front of her in that way they always did when she cared a lot about something (which was almost all of the time).

Your gaze caught on Dr. Abbot as you walked. You were always taken aback slightly by the effect the man had on you. Something tugging in your chest, not letting you look away. You’d only directly worked with the night shift attending on a handful of occasions, night shifts you’d picked up over the years and the times he would come in early or stay way too late. The man never seemed to stop moving, flying in and out of the hospital at all hours of the day and night. You often thought of him in that torn up camo SWAT uniform he’d stormed into the ED wearing a few months back, all fiery determination and confidence. Not that you were thinking of him often!

That was just the first time you’d really spent time with the man, had a conversation that wasn’t panicked, urgent shouting over cases or polite exchanges at shift change. 

He’d come in with the rest of the SWAT team, and you honestly hadn’t even recognized the doctor right away. Only when he’d rushed the bed right into a trauma room and begun working on his injured friend without faltering did you realize who he was. 

About an hour later, after the officer had been somewhat stabilized and admitted to surgery, you were across the ED frantically searching for your patient. 

Orlando had accepted your offer to at least send him home with a bag of supplies for home care if he wouldn’t stay and continue being monitored in the hospital. You’d told him to meet you out at the nurses station, but when you’d returned with the bag full of supplies he was nowhere to be found. You’d made your way to the room he’d been in, ripping back the curtain in hopes of finding him waiting there, but were met with an entirely different and unexpected sight. 

Dr. Abbot was resting on the edge of the patient bed, completely bare from the waist up and twisting awkwardly as he tried to reach something on the back of his shoulder.

“Oh.” You’d stated, finding yourself so caught off guard that you just stood in place for a moment, hand still gripping the plastic curtain as you stared at the man. His freckled, muscular arm was straining as he stretched, and you were stuck still staring for a moment before finding your voice again. “Sorry.” You continued at last, shaking your head a bit as if to clear it and come back to what you’d been doing. You looked around the small room as if Orlando could’ve been hiding somewhere. 

“S’okay.” The man’s gruff voice had replied quietly, the surprise fading from his face as he dropped his arm. You absentmindedly noted that he was holding a cotton swab with ointment, tinged a bit red at the tip, but your mind was already back on the frantic track of finding your flighty patient. 

“Have you seen my patient anywhere? Orlando?” You asked, turning back and peering out the glass door into the center of the ED. 

“No, sorry. No one was in here.” Abbot responded from behind you. You brought your hands up and tugged them through your hair in frustration, groaning loudly. 

“This sucks.” You huff, dropping down into a chair in defeat and letting your head fall toward the floor. 

“Oh, no I’m fine. Don’t worry about me-”

“No, my patient.” You interrupted Abbot, clarifying what you’d meant but also looking up for the first time in realization that he was clearly injured. “He was refusing treatment, I… I thought I’d convinced him to at least wait and let me get him what he’d need for home care but…” you lifted a hand to gesture at the empty room with a sigh. 

“So Uber it to his house.” Abbot replied matter of factly, turning back to peer over his shoulder again. You scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“You think the hospital’s gonna pay for that?”

“I’ll pay for it.” He replied immediately, voice a soft sigh. You froze where you stood, fingers flexing under your arms as you took in his words. He hadn’t even stopped to think about it, clearly wasn’t even thinking much about it now as he grunted, still trying to reach whatever injury needed attention on his back.

You hadn’t been sure if it was his natural quickness to be so generous, so thoughtful toward you and your patient- or the way your pulse was stuttering while you stared at his stretched, toned muscles, on display in a way you’d never even imagined. Well- okay, maybe you’d imagined this kind of thing, but you’d definitely never actually seen it. You’d always known Dr. Abbot was attractive, in that undeniable, back of your mind fact kind of way. He was a handsome and incredibly smart older man, of course you thought he was attractive- the entire hospital must’ve. But seeing this side of Abbot was definitely shifting the concept in your mind a bit. 

So yeah, you weren’t sure what exactly had gotten into you, but your feet carried you straight over to the patient bed where you plucked the cotton swab from Abbot’s grip without speaking. 

“What’re you doing?” He asked, not defensive but blatantly confused. 

“What you clearly can’t.” You joked softly, applying the ointment with ease. Rather than saying anything in response the man crossed his hands over his chest and huffed a bit of air out of his nose. It was a bit pouty, and endearing. “What happened?”

“Bullet grazed my vest.” Quiet and blunt. You waited in thought for a moment before speaking again. 

“Why do you do this?”

“My therapist said I need a hobby.” You almost snorted at his quick response, but let out a soft laugh instead. 

Though you didn’t know Dr. Abbot incredibly well, you did know a few things that mattered. 

You knew that he had served, which you’d come to realize during a conversation over beers in the park after a particularly shitty shift. He’d taken off his prosthetic, you hadn’t ever realized he had one, and Robby had said something in passing conversation that confirmed your suspicion; Abbot’s tough exterior had been built from more than just his time in the emergency department. 

You knew that Jack was a widower, something Dana had shared with you quietly when the man had been in an uncharacteristically bad mood one evening. He’d never gone home from his shift, staying all day as a woman watched her husband, Abbot’s patient, slowly pass away in trauma three. She’d watched you as you’d watched him, storming around the ED unable to do anything to help the woman losing her partner, her best friend. His wife passed, y’know. A few years ago. She’d squeezed your shoulder as if to add something unsaid. 

You knew that Jack Abbot was a good man. You knew this in a way that could only be learned by watching someone come in and save lives every single day. In watching him extend kindness and care and empathy and everything he possibly could to save his patients and the people he loved, because he’d lived a life experiencing a lot of the opposite; loss, hardship, fear.

So you didn’t say anything about the SWAT stuff, about how you thought it was reckless and a bit ridiculous, and how you wondered if he’d tried something normal like cooking or tennis before settling on getting shot at as a hobby. 

“Thanks.” Abbot eventually spoke quietly, and you went to toss the swab in the trash. “Didn’t wanna deal with the paper work.” 

“Our little secret, then.” You replied absentmindedly, removing your gloves and throwing them away as well. You must’ve gotten lost back in thought about Orlando, because when Abbot had spoken again you’d turned to see him clad in a black t-shirt and standing, good as new. 

“Let’s go look up his address. I’ll order the car.” 

No, it’s not that you spent a lot of time thinking about the man, that would be… silly. And embarrassing. It was just that when you did think about him, there was always a lot to think. That’s all. 

You came up to the group, realizing quickly from the identical looks on their faces that Samira had clearly shared your recent misfortune. Already on the warpath of compartmentalizing your personal life in order to be a functioning doctor, you spoke before they could. 

“Anything interesting?” You ask, grabbing a tablet. 

As if on perfect que, Robby strolled up next to you, his own tablet in hand as he stared up at the board. 

“Come on, you two can round with me.” the man says to Samira and you, not looking up as he types something. 

Thankful for the diversion, you fall into step behind the two attendings with Mohan, pushing any worries of your apartment to the recesses of your mind for the next twelve hours. 

The day passed relatively uneventfully, though as hectic and busy as always. When the end of the day rolled in and the night shift began seeping in, the thought of going home only dragged all memories of your current situation back to the surface full force. The responsibility of figuring out your apartment issue only weighed heavier after a twelve hour shift, who would’ve thought?

As you signed off on your last chart for the evening, you looked up to see Dr. Abbot entering the ED, backpack slung over one shoulder. To your surprise, he was headed in your direction, not coming to a stop until he was right beside you. 

“Hi, Dr. Abbot.” you greeted tiredly, sliding the tablet into its station on the counter and turning toward the man. 

“Hey kid.” He replied, tucking a hand in the pocket of his scrubs. “How you doing?” 

You hesitated, caught up a bit the way you always were around him. 

“Uh, fine.” You reply. “You?”

The man just looked at you, as if assessing your answer, deciding if he really believed it. He waited so long to speak you began wondering if you should excuse yourself, but could tell there was something he was trying to figure out how to say. 

“Heard you're having some… house problems.” 

You laugh, shocked at his bluntness and even more shocked at the man bringing up the subject at all. 

“You could say that.” You laugh humorlessly in response, folding your arms across your chest and leaning back against the wall. Your cheeks warmed a bit under Abbot’s gaze, a bit embarrassed to be discussing this with anyone at work let alone the older man who likely hadn’t had to worry about things like getting kicked out of his shitty apartment in a long time. 

“Listen.” Abbot spoke, and you stared back at him as you waited for him to continue. He didn’t. 

In fact, he didn’t for so long, instead opting to kick a booted foot against the floor and peer anywhere around the room but at you, that you thought you must’ve misheard him. When you moved to step away, his attention snapped back to you as if he’d woken up from a trance. 

“Listen-” he said again, going on quickly this time. “Mohan told me this morning about your apartment stuff. I know you probably don’t have many options, I’m honestly shocked you’re even living alone right now. No offense.” He added, and you couldn’t fault him, you’d really lucked out finding an apartment you could afford solo. Not that it had really worked out, had it? “I um… I wanted to offer for you to crash at my place. I have an extra room, an extra bathroom too. I honestly don’t even go upstairs much at all.” He was rambling now, hands gesturing in front of him as he spoke. “I just remember how hard it is, med school, residency and everything. And you’re not from here, right? I just don’t want you to have to struggle more than necessary. Any of you- I mean. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and obviously think about it and go through all your options and stuff. I just wanted to. Throw it out there.” He puffs a breath of air out. “If you want.”

If you had a smidge less composure, your jaw would have dropped onto the floor. You had to take a few seconds to process what Abbot had actually just said to you, and squeeze your nails into your palms to make sure you weren’t having some sort of weird stress dream. When you finally did respond, it wasn’t much.

“What?” You managed, needing the man to clarify whether or not he had actually just offered for you to… move in with him.

Dr. Jack Abbot, your very handsome, very charming, very much older and dreamy and intelligent and intimidating boss- had just asked you if you wanted to move into his house. Right? “I just wanted to give you the option. No pressure. At all.” He emphasized, taking a small step forward. “But the door’s open.” A hand was squeezing your arm then, and you jerked your head down to look at it as if you’d never been touched before. Abbot quickly let go, taking your surprised response as dislike. You immediately mourned the loss of his warm hand against you, and even more immediately tried to banish that insane thought from your mind. Were you genuinely losing it? 

“I- uh- I-”  you searched at a loss for an appropriate response to this insane offer. Because it was insane, right? Not that Abbot was insane, or that you didn’t trust him or anything like that. Honestly, when you really thought about it, you couldn’t think of a single reason on Abbot’s side of things that would deter you from accepting his offer. No, you were the problem.

You, who had most definitely and inarguably, despite how much you’d tried to convince yourself otherwise, had been harboring a crush on the night shift attending since that day you’d patched him up- if not the very first time you’d met him. Who’d caught yourself staring a few too many times at the wedding band on his finger, feeling like a terrible person for having a crush on a widowed man, and even more so feeling like a stupid girl for harboring a crush on a man who had already had a whole ass wife. You who, though you were embarrassed to admit it, had always been so generous in picking up people’s night shifts when they needed it for the ulterior motive of spending an entire shift beside Jack Abbot.

Saving you from stammering on any longer, Abbot gave you a tight lipped smile and curt nod, as if to say his business was finished.

“Just think about it kid. Let me know.” 

And then he was gone.

a/n: thank you so so much for reading <3 i hope u enjoyed

You'd all gathered for a wedding and fortunately the groom had picked a Hide and Seek card. He was set loose on the vast, remote estate and the families spread out to hunt him down. You were hunting in the woods, armed with a pistol and a long blade knife, when your idea struck you.

You'd been tracking the groom through the woods and had found him at the same time as Titus. The groom had stopped in a small clearing to catch his breath and you could see Titus on the side of the clearing in the bushes. You left your hiding place first, approaching the groom behind his back when your intentionally placed step on a twig alerted him to your presence. The man turned around quickly, tripping over his own feet and falling back to the forest floor. You lunged forward to attack - much slower than you typically move but the groom didn't know that - and the man grabbed a fallen tree branch next to him and hit you with it. You let yourself fall to the side like the blow had been enough to hurt you, your weapons flying from your hands.

The man scrambled up onto his knees, raised the branch above his head to hit you again, and stopped suddenly when the pick end of Titus' hammer slammed into the back of his head. The mans arms dropped limply to his side mere seconds before his eyes rolled back and the rest of his body went limp, falling to the ground in a lifeless pile.

You looked up at Titus from where you laid on the ground. He was holding the pick's handle with both of his hands, the end of the weapon wet with the grooms blood. Titus' chest was moving visibly in the moonlight, he must have been running before he found the groom, and his shirt sleeves were pushed up around his elbows so you could see the bulging muscles of his forearms. The Horseman's Pick was a heavy weapon, most of the other men couldn't even pick it up but Titus wielded it with strength and precision.

"Titus, you saved me." You breathed, your words dripping with gratitude. Titus shrugged as he transferred the pick handle to one hand and held out the other to help you to your feet. You made sure to stand close to him, your chests brushing as you stared up at him reverently.

"Thank you." You said sweetly, making sure to get his attention. Titus stared down at you, to his credit a little confused by your reaction. Most family members would be pissed to have messed up the kill and for another member to get it instead. But you weren't pissed, you were thanking him and staring up at him with eyes that sparkled with gratitude. You broke the eye contact and looked down at the dead body next to you.

"One killing blow?" You asked, your tone impressed. You turned your attention back to Titus, expecting an answer. He nodded and you broke into a dazzling smile.

"Good boy." Your words were full of dark appreciation and you turned your head to look back at the body to feign nonchalance and to give Titus a moment to comprehend your compliment. You needed to be slow and careful with him, like a Venus fly trap luring in its prey before snapping its mouth closed. With your head turned you didn't see Titus staring a hole into the side of your head as the wheels in his head turned what you said over and over.

Good boy.

Good boy.

Good boy.

Titus unconsciously puffed out his chest in pride as your words settled inside him. He stood a little taller too, your pride in the murder he committed filling him up with sunshine, hot and bursting. You had watched him do a horrible, evil thing and was proud of him for doing it. You were praising him for a job well done. Your eyes moved back to Titus' face and you saw the faintest of smiles on his lips, which could have made you jump with joy.

The plan was working so far.

"Thank you again Titus for saving me." You turned towards him fully, rested your palms on his chest and pushed up on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. It was quick and when you pulled back he looked stunned. You guessed that Titus, due to his lacking social calendar, had to pay for intimate company and he very rarely received voluntary affection. Especially not after brutally killing a man.

You smiled at him again, congratulated him for winning the hunt, and left him with his prize to make sense of what just happened between the two of you.

The next morning the families awoke to a huge storm that had rolled in and grounded their private jets for the time being. That meant the house was full of different families within the cult, everyone still buzzing from the hunt (except for the bride), and all cooped up inside. Everyone seemed to be getting along well, many people congratulating Titus for his kill last night over dinner and toasting to his success. You joined in the toast and smiled coyly when Titus made eye contact with you across the table. You maintained the eye contact even as you took a sip from your wine and set it on the table. Dinner continued like this, with you and Titus stealing fleeting glances every few minutes but never speaking.

After dessert you decided to retire for the evening and headed upstairs to your room. You didn't get very far down the hall before a man from another family stopped you. He didn't call out your name or announce himself, instead he chose to grab you by the arm to stop you.

"Hey!" You said indignantly as you wrenched your arm from his unwanted grasp.

"Sorry darling, didn't mean to upset you." The man said, laying on his charm pretty thick and flashing you an alarmingly white smile. You scowled at his attitude and turned around to continue heading to your room.

"Woah, woah, I just want to have a conversation!" The man explained as he darted around you to stand in your path. You came to a halt, still scowling at the man.

"I'm going to bed, I don't want to have a conversation."

"Bed huh? Need some company?" He asked, smiling widely again and leaning into your personal space. The last thing you wanted was to have this man join you in your room and you knew that he wasn't actually interested in you as a person. He looked at you and saw your family's money and what was between your legs. Nothing more.

"I absolutely do not need or want your company." You replied, your words cold and vicious. The man finally seemed to get that you weren't interested and never would be, which he took great offense to. He stepped forward, crowding himself into your personal space, and jammed a finger into your chest.

"Hey, there's no need for that snotty tone-" There was a blur of motion next to you and suddenly the man was pressed face first into the hallway wall with one of his arms twisted behind his back. Titus held him there, one hand with a vice grip on the mans wrist and his other hand on the back of the mans neck. Titus held him in place easily thanks to his strength and even though the other man struggled against Titus' hold, he never got free.

"The lady said no." Titus growled at the man, his voice low and harsh. His words sent a thrill through you, like lightning in your veins. You hadn't even orchestrated this situation, it had just happened and Titus came to your defense anyways. This was going to be much easier than you thought.

Titus pulled the man back from the wall and turned on the spot to essentially throw him back down the hallway towards the stairs. The other man stumbled but managed to not fall flat on his face when Titus released him and you took the opportunity to press yourself up against Titus, tucking yourself against him for protection. You rested your head against his chest, just under his chin, and put one arm around his back and placed the other hand on his chest. Titus didn't waste a moment to wrap a protective arm around you, further pressing you against him.

You could have smiled at the show of affection and defense from Titus, but you had to play the role of the damsel in distress so you kept your face neutral. The other man gained his footing and stared at the scene before him - Titus holding you close and you cowering against him - and he scoffed.

"I see someone else has already staked their claim. Fine. Enjoy her." The man turned around and left, leaving you and Titus in the hall alone. You looked up at Titus from your very warm and comforting spot at his side, to find him sneering at the other man until he left Titus' sight.

"Twice in as many days, you seem to have a knack for saving me." You commented, making no move to step out of Titus' embrace. He turned his attention to you when he was satisfied that the danger was gone and you watched his features soften when he looked at you. The anger melted away to be replaced with warmth and fondness.

"I saw him follow you, I wondered if he was with you." You shook your head at Titus' words.

"He's just another bottom feeder who's trying to marry me to absorb my family's fortune. He's not the first one who's tried and he won't be the last. Gosh Titus, what am I going to do when you leave? Who will protect me then?" You nuzzled your face against his chest, wrapping your arms around him fully to hug him close. Your heart soared when Titus wrapped his arms around you too without hesitation, securing you to him in a protective embrace.

"I've seen you take care of yourself." Titus complimented, his breath hot against the top of your head. You shrugged as you stepped back, trying to play a little hot and cold to keep him interested. You were thrilled when Titus held onto you until the last possible second, his hot hands trailing down the bare skin of your arms until you were out of his reach.

"I've had to take care of myself my whole life. My family was pretty cut throat and them being gone hasn't made it any easier for me. It's been nice to have someone who's had my back. Thank you Titus." You said sincerely. He nodded solemnly at you, taking your thanks to heart. You looked down the hall in the direction of your bedroom.

"I better go to bed. I don't like thunder storms and I can tell I'm going to have a tough time sleeping tonight." That was a lie and just like you hoped, Titus swallowed it - hook, line and sinker.

"I could keep you company if you want. Until you fall asleep." You perked up, smiling at him.

"Really? I'd appreciate that Titus. Could you ask the staff for some tea while I get ready for bed?"

"Of course." Titus headed off in the opposite direction of your room, on the hunt for a staff who could fulfill your request while you hurried to your room to get ready.

You didn't want to be too obvious but you also didn't want to be so subtle that you sent mixed signals. You chose a long, white nightgown made of lace and silk that was sheer in the right light. The neckline went all the way to the tips of your shoulders, showing off your neck and the top of your chest which would give Titus a bit of a show.

There was a knock at your door a few minutes later and Titus let himself in with two steaming mugs of tea. He closed the door with his foot and approached you where you'd settled for the evening in one of the overly large arm chairs by the window. You thanked him for the tea and gestured for him to join you in the other armchair. He took a seat, lounging back in the chair, the picture of confidence and easy comfort.

He struck up conversation first, asking you questions about how you'd been spending your time lately and how you'd been getting on since the death of your last family member. The questions he had were all curious and not invasive and you were honest with him. You volleyed questions back at him about his business and his family and the health of his father. You spent the next hour getting to know each other a bit better, the conversation illuminating and personal, making you smile and laugh as much as you listened seriously to his feelings and anecdotes about his childhood.

A sudden crack of thunder so loud it shook the windows interrupted your conversation and reminded you of your true motives for having Titus in your room. Before the thunder even stopped, you threw yourself to the ground, huddled on your knees at Titus' feet. Titus sat up straight, looking down at your trembling form as you pressed your face against the side of his thigh and tightened your hands around his pant leg. Titus set his tea aside and ran his hand over the top of your head, petting your hair in comfort which did relax you.

While you were playing it up a little bit, it did feel nice to put your worries into someone else’s hands. Having Titus there to watch your back, and comfort and protect you, and tell you everything would be alright was something you didn’t know you needed. You’d always took care of yourself, always made sure to be wrapped in barbed wire and steel as a way for protecting yourself, especially after you became the last member of the family standing. It was a lot of responsibility and pressure, and laying your head in Titus’ lap made you feel less alone.

You tilted your chin up to look at him and he smiled softly down at you, an edge of condescension in his eyes as he looked at you kneeling at his feet, small and submissive.

"Come up here bunny." Titus said as his hand cupped the back of your head. You complied, standing and climbing into his lap, your knees on either side of his hips and your hands on his shoulders. Titus rested his hands on your hips, his fingers digging into your soft flesh as he tugged you closer until your unclothed core was pressed against his half hard cock. You gasped, your fingers curling into the material of his shirt and your chest brushing against his.

"Is that because of me?" You asked coyly as Titus' hand trailed up your back, trapping you in his embrace. His eyes were dark and full of desire, watching you with rapt attention. Sitting on your knees you were a little taller than him in this position meaning he had to tip his head back to look into your eyes. Your hands slid up to his face, holding him in that position as your thumbs grazed his cheek reverently.

"Are you going to take care of me Titus?" You whispered, the tip of your nose brushing his. Titus licked his lips and smiled, dark and knowing.

"Absolutely bunny." Titus leaned forward and captured your lips in a deep and possessive kiss. You moaned into his mouth, letting him claim you as his hands ran over your body. He grabbed handfuls of your nightgown and wasted no time in pulling it up, breaking the kiss for only a moment to get the fabric over your head. He tossed it to the ground without even looking, his focus entirely on you.

You couldn't deny the effect his touch had on you. Your kisses were hot and heavy, your skin on fire and your pussy throbbed with need. You could feel how big he was, even through the confines of his pants, and you felt dizzy at the idea of him inside you. Desperate for some relief you rolled your hips against him, the friction of your bare pussy against the fabric of his slacks giving you the stimulation you wanted and you moaned into Titus' mouth again as he groaned into yours.

Titus' hot hands slid over your soft skin, mapping out every dip and valley. The desperate grip of his hands let you know that you had him, completely. The mouth of the Venus fly trap was closing around him slowly, inch by inch and he didn't even know.

You broke the kiss, pulling away from Titus to look down at him. To your delight his pupils were blown wide and his breath came out in heavy pants. His eyes were fixed on you, as though in a trance, like you were the only thing in his universe at the moment. You were still rolling your hips, humping against his clothed cock and sending sparks of pleasure through you both.

"Kiss me baby." You panted as you tilted your head to the side, exposing your neck to him and offering up the smooth column of skin. Titus delighted in the invitation and leaned forward to press hot, wet kisses up and down your neck. You held the back of his head, your fingers slipping through his grey curls as you sighed. Your head tipped back in ecstasy as Titus sucked possessive hickeys into your skin and bit down as his hands pulled your hips forward to grind down harder against his cock.

Titus kissed along your shoulder and you took advantage of his position to push up higher on your knees and push your bare tits towards his face. Titus' eyes flicked up to yours for a moment, his mouth open and wanting just inches from your skin.

"Please," You whined, arching your back more to push your tits forward. Titus kept his eyes on yours as he lowered his mouth to your breast and wrapped his lips around your nipple. He closed his eyes in pleasure and sucked, pulling a moan from you as his tongue lapped at the sensitive bud. You cradled the back of Titus' head, keeping him secured to your breast as he sucked greedily on your nipple. His hand rose to your other breast and enveloped it in his large hand, massaging the flesh while his other hand pressed flat on your back, keeping you where he wanted you.

"Yes," You sighed. "That's it, good boy." The praise went directly to Titus' cock and he moaned lewdly into your tit, pressing his face further against your flesh like he could crawl inside you. You felt so wet, you knew you were dripping into Titus' lap, but he was too preoccupied to notice. When he did pull back from your breast you guided him to the other, neglected breast, nodding encouragingly at him when his eyes went to your face. He wasted no time sucking on your other nipple, moaning when you praised him some more.

"Just like that baby - oh God Titus - yes, yes, you're being so good to me." You moaned. "Good boy, you're doing so good." Titus sucked harder and lavished your nipple with his tongue, spurred on by the praise. At this point your cunt was throbbing, begging to be filled and you couldn't stand it any longer.

"I need your cock baby," You whined desperately, tugging on Titus' hair. "I need you to take care of me." Titus obeyed, albeit reluctantly, pulling away from your breast with a somewhat dazed expression on his face. On another night you'll let him suck on your tits until they were red from his stubble and purple from his hickeys, but right now you needed him inside you.

You dropped back into his lap and made very quick work of his belt and zipper, not bothering with him getting undressed and pulling his hard cock out as soon as you could. You rose up on your knees again to take him inside you, smiling to yourself as Titus pressed his face between your breasts once they were back in his face, before you swiped the bulbous head of his cock through your wet folds and guided him inside you.

You moaned together as you sank down onto him, his large size stretching you but not finding any resistance because of how wet you were. You sat down until your hips were flush with his, his cock fully nestled inside you and your forehead pressed against his. Your hands gripped his shoulders and his held you at your spine and the back of your neck. The weight of his hand on the back of your neck was comforting and controlling in equal measure, his fingers loosely around your neck claiming you as his.

You rose up on your knees, your thighs shaking from the pleasure as you began to bounce in his lap, fucking yourself on his cock. The length of his cock filled you completely and you could feel his tip kissing your cervix every time you dropped down into his lap. He consumed your senses, his woodsy scent filling your nose and his groaning breaths filling your ears, drowning out the sound of rain pelting the windowpane. Your only thought was reaching your pleasure, building it as you fucked him.

"That's it, bounce bunny." Titus murmured, his fingers tightening on your neck as he jerked his hips to meet your thrusts. Your thighs trembled and burned with the effort but you were too caught up in Titus to notice or care. Titus' hand left your neck to slip down in front of you and thumb your clit. You cried out as a wave of pleasure struck through you, your nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders. You leaned into Titus, your breasts bouncing directly in his face as you chased your orgasm.

"Come on my cock bunny." Titus ordered, his thumb circling your clit in calculated strokes. You had no choice but to obey and you shattered in his arms, your orgasm ripping through you. Titus took hold of your hips and kept you bouncing as your pleasure rippled through you, fucking you on his cock as he chased his own orgasm.

As you came down from your high you returned more into yourself and remembered you still had a deal to seal. You pivoted, trying to regain the reins and control of the situation.

"C'mon baby," You sighed as you leaned fully into Titus, pressing your chest against his face as your continued to move up and down his cock. "Be good for mommy, come for me." You purred as your fingernails scratched the back of his scalp. Titus moaned loudly at your words, his face buried in your tits. His grip on your hips tightened as he dropped you down on his cock faster, rougher, your words making his balls tighten and his cock pulse.

"Be a good boy for mommy, baby. Come inside me Titus."

"Oh, oh mommy," Titus groaned, his words muffled against your chest as his orgasm started to spill out of him. A few more hard thrusts and Titus slammed you down on his cock one last time to come inside you, his cock twitching as he filled you with his cum. You took Titus' face in your hands and peppered his face with kisses as his cock pulsed inside you.

"Good boy," You praised breathlessly. "Such a good job, making me feel so good." You placed tiny kisses along his jaw and across his cheeks. Once Titus came back to himself his hand flew up to the back of your neck to pull you into a hard and passionate kiss, his lips kissing you like you belonged to him. You melted into his touch voluntarily, savoring the kiss and the heat of his mouth.

The kiss didn't end until Titus released you, letting you pull away but you didn't, instead choosing to rest your head on his shoulder and your hands on his chest, his softening cock still inside you.

"What am I going to do when you leave?" You asked with a melancholy sigh.

"I could stay." Titus replied simply and you perked up, lifting your head to look at him.

"Stay? For how long?" You tried to sound the right amount of eager, not quite over the moon but very happy. The truth was that you were over the moon at what you were sure he was proposing.

"How about forever?" He said, a sly edge to his voice. You broke into a smile.

"Titus, are you asking me to marry you?" Your voice was high with excitement and you didn't hide it from him. He grinned at you, like the cat that ate the canary.

"You want to be a Danforth, bunny?"

"More than anything." You said with a brilliant smile before kissing him deeply.

And just like that, the mouth of the Venus fly trap closed those last few inches around Titus and you were set for life.

dividers by @ strangergraphics

Nights spent pacing the garden of Smurf’s house, bare feet on the cold ground, counting his steps to keep his mind occupied. It never did. He tried to outrun the memories of his actions, to drown his pain at the bottom of the pool. But on those nights, his torment wore the faces of his ghosts.

First there was Julia, then Cath, quickly followed by Baz. And Smurf. Always Smurf. A cycle of misery that makes his ribcage feel as though it might collapse under the violent pounding of his heart.

Some days, seated at a table with his family, Andrew had felt he could scream until his throat gave out, and no one would have heard. He imagined falling into the pool, slipping under the surface, water closing over his head and staying there, lungs burning just long enough for the noise to finally fucking stop, no one coming to pull him out because nobody would have noticed he disappeared.

There were moments when the thought settled heavy in his bones: he would not survive another day in his family, he didn’t want to. He kept straining toward a bond that no longer reached his end…if it ever did.

Over the years, Andrew had grown accustomed to his role. Weird Pope, Creepy Pope, the family’s guard dog: asking for nothing, obeying to the beatings, the killings and never, never, mentioning the ghosts hunting the corner of his eyes each night.

He remembered Smurf’s voice, years ago. “Pop him a few pills and he’ll follow your commands, baby.” She said it to Baz like it was nothing, like he was nothing. This was before prison, before Andrew felt deep in his bones that the other half of his soul left this merciless Earth without him.

Sometimes he let himself think about Julia, since no one else did. He hoped that at least one of them had finally found peace.

Then, you happened.

And Andrew can’t make sense of it, no matter how much he turns it over in his head, how a girl like you ends up being friends with Craig and therefore, near the Cody brothers: you are sweet, kind, nothing but soft edges, and innocent. Almost like the world has spared you the knowledge of what men like him are capable of.

Whenever you are in the house, his gaze follows you from room to room. He tells himself that it’s vigilance and habit that pushes him to act like that. Except he doesn’t need to memorize the way you tuck your hair behind your ear, or how he can recognize the distinct sound of your footsteps in a heartbeat.

He learns and catalogues each of your reactions: the faint frown of your nose at the smell of a particular brand of coffee (gone from the house and replaced before sunset), the soft curl of your lips whenever you are kindly refusing his offer to make you a sandwich.

(He wouldn’t be bothered if you took a bite of his.)

To see you is a special kind of hell and an indescribable heaven, like pressing on a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.

Lately, you shift the air of the house by simply existing in it. Your laugh, in the rooms where Smurf had once lived, seems to almost cleanse the walls of her memory.  And Andrew knows. He knows that’s why Craig is friends with you. Because each day, the sun seems to finally be able to reach the house, even his own room.

It frightens him.

His body instinctively adjusts around your presence, his mind reassessing new rules (the glasses on the bottom shelf so you can have access to them, checking how many drinks you have at Deran’s bar). He memorizes your schedule, notes which books you are bringing with you in your bag, times how long it takes you to get home, parks far enough that you can’t notice his truck but close enough that he can reach you if something goes wrong.

All his life, Andrew had survived by wanting nothing. By hollowing himself out until the obedience Smurf wanted from him fitted neatly inside his ribs, because wanting had always been a liability, a weakness someone could press a knife into.

But now…now that life seems finally good and breathable, that he has the skatepark and his siblings and an almost regular life (if one exists for men like him) without Smurf’s claws on his throat, Andrew finds himself cornered by a simple, terrifying truth: he wants you.

He swallows it. Buries it deep inside, trying to drown it with numbness and even more repetitive actions when you are near: chopping, tidying the house, scrubbing counters that are already clean, fixing hinges that doesn’t squeak… Anything to keep his hands busy so they don’t reach for you.

No, Andrew Cody has never been able to sleep properly.

──────────

You remember telling yourself that the house felt wrong before you ever understood why.

Craig had asked you to come meet his brothers and from his tone alone, you knew it was a big deal. That something was at stake.

You showed up at four sharp, even if he hadn’t given you a specific time (something you would soon realize was typical of Craig), a paper bag pressed to your chest, palms already sweaty. You stood outside for a full minute before knocking, taking a few deep breaths, and stepping over the threshold with a smile as he wrapped you in a hug with his tall frame before dragging you straight into the kitchen.

That’s when you saw him.

Broad shoulders, dark curls on a face held tight, back straight and hands braced on his thighs, his posture so still you almost thought he was a mannequin.

“My brother Pope,” Craig said. “Don’t mind him, he almost doesn’t bite.”

His gaze was already on you, unblinking, steady in a quiet unnerving way, like he was committing every detail to memory, a look so intense it coaxed words out of you before you could stop them.

“H-Hi,” you stuttered, giving your name as you tried to stay composed. You extended your hand toward him, and he stared at it for a moment. The pause stretched long enough for doubt to creep up your spine (maybe he didn’t shake hands? maybe you had already broken some invisible rule?).

You swallowed, blood rising to your cheeks, drawing your hand back to clutch the paper bag as you tried not to stammer on your words. “I brought pastries. I didn’t know what you all would like so…I kind of…guessed,” you hated how small your voice sounded.

He stayed silent, brows faintly furrowed, as if he was processing what you had just said. Then he nodded. “Thank you.”

His tone was quiet, almost a hum, pulled from the depth of his chest, the sound settling low in your stomach, warm and heavy, and your first thought (unwelcome and strange) was how that vibration would feel beneath your palm.

Craig sighed with desperation at the conversation with a quiet “Stop being weird, bro!” while his other younger brother, unbothered, simply ignored the awkwardness, nodded as an introduction and handed beers around.

It was a welcome distraction, the cold liquid sliding down your throat, and buying you time to think on what to say next, but the youngest, Deran, beat you to it, asking you about your job and how good a surfer you were.

“You fuckin’ with me? You live in Oceanside and can’t stand on a board?” he laughed and couldn’t stop the slight condescending tone from his voice. “No worry, me or mister El Craigo here will introduce you to it. You’ll only swallow, like…a gallon of water before you get it.”

“Oh, um…I don’t think…”  you tried to say, though it was mostly ignored.

Pope hadn’t looked away once, hand gripping tightly enough on the beer that you could see his knuckles whitening. There was something careful about the way he held himself: still, contained.

Your eyes met his again and you smiled tentatively.

“Um…Pope,” you started, uncertain, the name tasting strange on your tongue. “Can I ask you…”

“Andrew.” He interrupted, the tone firm enough to stop you mid-breath.

You suddenly became aware of your heartbeat, your chest lifting as it rattled against your ribs. Your gaze dropped at the intensity. Had you done something wrong? You suddenly felt foolish for the pastries, for the outstretched hand, for trying so hard, and an absurd urge to apologize rose in your throat, even if you didn’t know what for.

When you looked up, he was already halfway out of the kitchen.

You never finished your question.

Later that night, when you slipped into your bed, the sheets cold but familiar in their welcoming loneliness, you turned from one side to the other, eyes pinched shut without any release to exhaustion, realizing that you couldn’t remember what you had meant to ask.

Only that you wanted to hear his voice, just one more time.

──────────

The house is too loud. It always is when there are people over.

It reminds him of being a kid, hiding with Julia, hands intertwined, avoiding the drunk and high grown-ups. Whispering that everything would be alright. That no one would find them. Not even Smu-

(Bad thought. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on the kitchen counter.)

The volume of the music is pushed too high for his comfort, a constant buzz under the conversations in the house and near the pool while Andrew stands in the kitchen, hands deep in soapy water, scrubbing a glass that is already clean.

He finished the dishes ten minutes ago, but he is still washing, still drying, rearranging things that don’t need rearranging because it gives him somewhere to put his hands, to put his eyes. Because the alternative is the living room. And you.

(You, in that white dress. He has the stupid thought that you look like an angel and immediately hates himself for it. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the droplets dripping from his fingertips.)

He tells himself that he is staying in the kitchen because it lets him see everything in the house, because parties mean unlocked doors, strangers who could wander into rooms they shouldn’t be in. And there are the habits he can’t shake off: watching the exits, the unfamiliar faces, counting heads (Deran, Craig, you), noting who is drinking too much, who is getting loud, who might break something.

He dries the same plate twice in a row before setting it down on the kitchen counter and looking up without meaning to.

You are by the couch, perched on the armrest while Craig, bare chest and shameless about it, tells you the story about the time he smuggled a burrito full of drugs across the Mexico border, story he knew you heard a dozen times these past three months. But still, you are laughing, head tipped back, hair falling down your spine (he wonders what they would feel like underneath his fingertips), one hand wrapped around a bottle you haven’t drunk from in a while, like it has more to do with keeping your hands busy while you are listening.

Andrew noticed it the first week he met you.

But the moment your lips wrap around the drink, he looks away and goes back to washing clean and dried plates, hands in the ice water, soap stinging the small cut on his knuckle.

(Good. Something sharp. Something real. Better than counting for now.)

“I bought you a new pair of gloves.”

Your voice is closer than he expected and his head snaps towards you before he can stop it. You are standing at the edge of the counter, smiling, so close that he can smell your shampoo despite the soap and the lingering smell of weed (it’s so clean, so soft, he wants to drown himself in it).

 “Why?” He asks, his nostrils flaring at his own bluntness.

You shrug, small. “I know Craig threw your pair away yesterday. And, um… I know you like wearing them when you clean.”

“Why?” his voice repeats, breaking at the word.

Of course, you ignore his question, and he can’t help but spiral (why did you do that? do you realize how much the gesture is affecting him? no one ever cared about his gloves. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the freckles on your nose.).

“I got the good ones,” you add, beaming. “So the soap doesn’t mess up your hands.”

While your eyes drop to his hands, his are still enraptured on your face, studying every single feature (you really do look like an angel. and you act like one too. maybe you are his salvation. stop, he needs to fucking stop but he no longer knows what to count.).

Andrew swallows what feels like an anchor in his throat because you look like you worry about him (you have done that for a while now, which still baffles him). Nobody worries about him: they worry about what he might do, not whether he is hurt.

“’m fine.” He mutters, not convincingly enough, judging by the look on your face.

You are still looking at his bruised hands and your fingers twitch on the counter like you had the sudden urge to reach for him, like you might take his hand to look at it.

(He has the overwhelming need to know what you would do with his hands in yours. Hold them? Kiss them better? One. Two. Three- would you let his hands run along your hair? He knows what it’s like to touch you when you need help, but he feels that this would be very different.)

“They are under the sink,” you say above the music and Andrew can’t do anything else but stare, not trusting his own voice.

You linger for a moment at the counter and Andrew wants to ask you to stay (in the kitchen, in his life, doesn’t matter), but Craig shouts your name from the living room and suddenly he has some homicidal thoughts. You glance over your shoulder, then back at Andrew, and you look…reluctant.

“I’ll…”

“Yeah.”

You don’t move. Neither does he.

“Thanks.” He finally says, his gaze still tracking every shift of your expressions, trying to burn your smile in his retina, hoping one blink would not be enough to erase it.

“Of course, Andrew.”

Andrew. For you, he is Andrew and that’s all that matters because you are the only one calling him by this name and you make it sound like it belongs to you ever since you first said it by the pool.

With one last little smile, you walk away and his eyes follow you until he knows you have reached Craig but even then, he doesn’t look away, afraid you might disappear, just like every good thing always did.

And Andrew learned, a long time ago, that if you wanted something to stay alive and safe, you watched it. Guarded it. Didn’t blink.

Andrew didn’t blink.

──────────

You stepped outside because the house had started to feel too small, suffocating all at once, Craig and Deran’s voices stacking over each other in the open kitchen, arguing about a job - a part of the Cody brothers’ lives you knew existed but mostly chose not to look at too closely.

You told yourself you only needed a second of quiet, just enough space to breathe properly again after a long day at work full of aggravating customers, meager tips and a coffee spilt by a coworker on your bare legs.

The noise softened once the door closed, letting you draw in a deep breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“Fucking hell.” You muttered, exhausted by the shouting.

You hadn’t noticed him at first, too busy staring at the pool and ignoring your inner voice telling you to jump straight in the pool fully clothed, a thought that you were soon pulled out of when you heard a sound that didn’t belong to the wind or the trees.

That’s when you saw him, seated at the edge of a lounge chair, head bowed, a skateboard turned upside down across his thighs, one hand spinning a wheel while the other oiled it with slow, precise movements.

“Not a fan of the shouting matches?” you asked, trying not to startle him.

He glanced up, shook his head before going back to the board. “No.”

“So…not keen on loud noises either?”

“No.”

For a moment, you simply watched him, struck by how different he looked when he was doing something he seemed to…enjoy. Less folded into himself, the usual tightness of his posture easing (was it because of the board? the sound of the pool? the absence of his brothers? whatever it is, the view looked precious enough for you to want to capture it).

You lowered yourself onto the warm concrete next to him, your back resting against the lounge chair, knees pulled to your chest, neither of you speaking for a while.

That’s when you noticed his hands: knuckles swollen and red, the skin split near the thumb, a faint line of blood reopening every time the skin stretched.

“They look like they hurt. Y-Your hands, I mean.”

He shrugged without looking at you. “They’re fine.”

Your eyes drifted from them to his profile: from his hazel eyes fully focused on the board to the tight set of his mouth and you caught yourself distracted by his lips for a second too long before forcing your eyes back to the floor, warmth creeping up your neck (don’t think about that, don’t think about that).

“Andrew?”

The wheel immediately stopped spinning. Not gradually, just…stopped.

The entire yard suddenly became too quiet as his face snapped towards you, something unreadable flickering across his face and vanishing just as quickly, and you felt the realization settle in slowly that you had finally said his name after almost a month of avoiding it.

“Do you think I could learn how to skateboard? I…” the words got stuck between your throat and your lips while you searched for the courage to finish your sentence without tripping over yourself. “I mean…I wanted to know if you could help me. Learn it, I mean. If you wanted to. You don’t have to, I just…” (fuck. why? why were you so weird?)

Your fingers picked at the hem of your skirt and pulled on a thread to busy your hands, and from the corner of your vision you caught his brief smile, and the warmth that spread was so shamefully immediate that you bit your tongue until you tasted metal just to keep from blurting out something along the lines of ‘i really, really, fucking love your smile, please do it again so my day goes from moderately shitty to embarrassingly close to perfection.’

“Give me your phone.” he said, and you didn’t hesitate, fishing it out from your pocket, and placing it in his palm.

“There’s no password on your phone.”

“Yeah…I know.”

“It’s dangerous.” His thumb hovered over the screen, nose flaring. “Anyone could get into it. Your photos. Your messages. Your address. Everything is in there.”

You barely heard the end of it, too focused on the pull in your chest as his words kept coming, just for you.

“I haven’t thought about that.” You murmured, feeling foolish while he muttered to himself something that definitely sounded like ‘I did.’

He tapped his number in before going through the settings while you were still struck by his intensity and that he was doing this for you without being asked.

“Six digits. Not birthdates and not something simple like six zeros.” He handed your phone back, his fingers lingering for a second too long before pulling away. “Put one.”

This time you knew it was an order and you didn’t hesitate a second as you followed it, typing something in, suddenly hyperaware of how close he was standing, your shoulder almost brushing his calf, your pulse loud in your ears and a slow, humiliating heat pooling low in your stomach that you refused to think about at the moment.

“Good.” He said after you saved the password. “Text me your work hours.”

“So, it’s a yes? Really?”

He grunted and whether the dusting of crimson over his freckles was real or something you imagined, you couldn’t tell, you were too busy feeling as light as a leaf.

“Yes. And…”

His words were cut off by the screen door banging open, leaning back abruptly just as Craig made his way toward you both with a grin that meant whatever the fight with Deran had been about, he had won.

“Deran agrees for Friday night. And you,” he tapped your forehead. “didn’t hear shit.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s my girl. Now get your ass in the pool.”

Craig was already running to the pool before you could respond, clothes coming off mid-step.

“I can’t believe this man has a kid. Has you brother always been a shameless nudist?”

 “Unfortunately…yes.”

You snorted before murmuring. “Thanks, by the way. For the password thing. And for agreeing to teach me. I promise I’ll only be like…average terrible.”

“You’ll be fine,” he shrugged. Then, quieter, “I’ll make sure.”

His gaze dipped briefly to your mouth when he said it, before snapping back up, and something in your stomach turned warm and gooey, a reckless part of you hoping he might add something else. Or step closer again. But he didn’t, just nodded once, before muttering. “Go.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you to your board, Andrew.”

You made it halfway to the pool before you glanced back. He was still watching, not even pretending not to, looking like a leopard ready to jump. Like if you slipped, he would already be moving.

And lying awake that night, window cracked open and the ocean humming somewhere in the dark, you muffled his name into your pillow, trying to quiet yourself, imagining his hands instead of yours. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.

──────────

Andrew is used to ending his nights alone because wanting people to stay never goes well for him.

So, when the party finally ends at four in the morning, he does what he knows best: throwing the bottles into the trash, making sure no one is passed out in the backyard or asleep in one of the bedrooms and…cleaning.

First the diving board, even if Craig is still making out on one of the lounge chairs with a girl whose name Andrew can’t remember and doesn’t try to (he knows best). Next, the counter, twice in a row for good measure. Then the sink, while Deran claps a hand on his shoulder with a “Don’t stay up too late, okay?” before heading out.

(One. Two. Three. Four. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. He counts the second you spend in the bathroom.)

He stands in the kitchen for a moment before realizing it might look strange and make you uncomfortable. That’s the last thing he wants.

He rushes back to his room (he wouldn’t exactly call it ‘sprinting’. sprinting would mean he is trying to avoid you. which he is not. not at all.).

He doesn’t bother turning on the light when he decides to lie on top of the covers, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling because he knows that sleep won’t come. It never does.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks.)

Every time he closes his eyes, something crawls up from beneath his ribs and he is once again plagued by his ghost: Julia’s voice, Cath’s smile, Baz’s forgiveness. Smurf’s words cutting straight through him.

He thinks about the pool and how easy it would be to let the water close over his head. How all the voices would finally be silent forever, his own included.

(Bad thoughts. One. Two. Three. Four. He recites the number of cameras in the bank for the incoming job.)

He forces himself to think of something else.

Of you, earlier, laughing at Craig’s story (and the immediate, unwelcome ache in his chest as he wonders if there’s something between the two of you, if this will end the way things always seem to, if you’ll be another Cath: close to him before preferring his brother).

Then he thinks about the way he made you laugh on your first skateboard lesson, all because he wanted to make you feel safe and seen, how the simple feel of your waist had nearly made him press his forehead to your shoulder and beg for you to stay and keep looking at him like that.

He thinks about that night when you called him for help, and how he didn’t hesitate for even a second when reaching for his keys, truck already running before you even finished explaining because the simple thought of you alone somewhere in the dark, waiting and frightened, had felt like acid running through his veins, the kind of fear that made him beg to the sky “Not here, not her, not again. I won’t fail her”.  

He presses his palms against his eyes until he sees bursts of purple light.

(Breathe. One. Tw-)

A faint knock against the door makes him freeze.

Nobody knocks in this house, his brothers just…barge in.

He is already on his feet before he realizes it, his hand finding the handle before he opens to find you there.

Barefoot, hair loose and messy, the mascara smudged at the corners of your eyes and the dress wrinkled. Earlier, Andrew thought you looked like an ethereal angel, something untouchable and holy.

But now…now you just look human, real and warm, which is worse because real things like you can stay as well as leave.

“Hey.” You murmur, leaning against the doorframe.

He grips the handle tightly to steady himself.

“Something wrong?”

“I was supposed to sleep on the couch,” you begin, talking with your hands the way you always do when you try to explain a situation, “but signor El Craigo has decided that it’s now his new make out spot with Sam and I really don’t need that image burned into my brain. And of course, I thought about taking his room in retaliation, but I don’t trust his conception of hygiene,”

That makes him huff.

“So…” you add, rubbing your arm, almost shy which doesn’t make sense in his mind because you haven’t been shy with him in a long time with the skatepark lessons or with the ‘hallway accident’ you both had together, “Can I stay here tonight?”

You don’t say ‘with you’ nor ‘in your bed’, but Andrew understands and he is pretty sure his brain short circuits for a second or two.

You didn’t text Deran or try to Uber home. You just came to him. Because you trusted him.

“Yes.” He replies too fast, stepping back from the door.

“You sure?”

He nods to avoid confessing that he would give you the bed. The room. The house. The air in his lungs.

You slip past him into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed before looking back at him and asking gently, “You’re not sleeping, right?”.

“No. Not…not really.”

“Yeah, figured.”

You lie down beneath the covers first, curling onto the side of the bed closest to the wall, leaving him space.

“Don’t think about staying on top of the covers, Andrew.”

The warning in your tone almost makes him laugh so he complies, lying down beside you, fully clothed and aware of every inch separating the two of you.

He stares at the ceiling again.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breathing.)

The mattress shifts while you slowly roll onto your back before turning fully toward him, your shoulder brushing his arm.

“Sorry,” you mumble sleepily. “’m cold.”

“It’s fine.” He says it like the ghost of your breathing over his collarbone didn’t just set every of his nerves on fire, like he was not terrified to shift even an inch.

After a few minutes, you drift closer in your sleep, chasing warmth without thinking, your knee pressing against his thigh, your hand sliding across the sheets until your fingers come to rest on the fabric of his shirt, right over his heartbeat and for a moment he genuinely forgets how to breathe.

Your palm is so warm, and he is painfully aware that you can probably feel how hard his heart is pounding.

Nobody has ever touched him like this, like he is something safe and out of everything that has happened to him: the underground fights, the prison, the jobs…none of that ever made him feel this defenseless.

His eyes suddenly burn because he wants to turn so much to see your peaceful face, tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pull you closer to know just once in his life what it’s like to hold something good without destroying it, to press his face into your hair and breathe until the ghosts quiet down, but he doesn’t.

He stays exactly as he is, lying in the dark, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breaths again. Then the seconds between them. He thinks about the fact that you’re here and the miracle of it.)

Sleep doesn’t come, but for the first time in years, the night doesn’t feel empty. Because you’re here. Warm. Alive. Trusting him.

So, Andrew stays awake until morning, guarding the only good thing that ever chose him.

──────────

You were so, so late.

You had told Andrew on the phone that you would be at his skatepark at 5:15 sharp after work, and it was now 5:42 and you were sprinting the half mile that separated the coffee shop from there, bag smacking against your hip, your lungs burning, already sweaty before you even reached the entrance, trying to slow your breathing with a few useless deep inhales, hands braced on your knees, pretending that you were not seconds away from passing out.

(First lesson and you were already late and a disaster. Great. Very impressive.)

You straightened, wiped your forehead, and stepped inside, scanning the park before finding Andrew, board tucked under one arm, sleeves riding up his biceps, curls messy from the wind and sweat and you were now positively sure that you had some drool at the corner of your mouth (the universe had decided to sabotage you and that was fucking unfair.)

You watched the tiny smile he had as a girl showed him her board, proud and beaming at him like he had personally hung the sun in the sky (no, you didn’t need to think about him being good with kids. you didn’t need to picture him with kids, him gentle, him…stop. shut up.).

The second his head lifted and locked eyes with you, you were pretty much done for. It was ridiculous, really, how one look from him could short-circuit every coherent thought in your brain, how your feet just…moved, carrying you toward him instinctively, dropping your bag by the fence without breaking your stride as he met you halfway.

His gaze dragged over you once: your face, your hair, your chest.

“You ran here?”

“Yes. And I’m sweating…a lot. Please don’t judge me.”

He took a few seconds, a storm passing through his eyes before he added.

“You’re late.”

“I know,” you rushed, your hands quickly moving and your words tumbling over each other like they always did when you got flustered around him. “but a guy ordered for his whole ‘cheaper by the dozen’ family like three minutes before we closed. I’m probably sure he sensed my despair and fed on it.”

A small huff escaped him. “You didn’t have to run.”

You shrugged, eyes to the ground. “Didn’t want you to think I bailed on you.”

You felt it, his head tilting down just enough to catch your gaze again, stubborn about it.

“I wouldn’t. Now you ready?”

“Born ready.” You lied through your teeth.

“You look terrified.”

“I can do both, you know,” you shot back quickly. “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

There was the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Okay, Whitman.”

“Y-You know Whitman?”

A pause.

“I mean…not that I don’t believe you or think you can’t read poetry or anything…that’s actually super hot, so good job!” you gave him a thumbs-up, aware you had just lost every ounce of dignity you had ever possessed. “It’s just that last week Craig asked me if ‘Pride and Peace’ was a good book to impress a girl, so…my bar was very low.”

Andrew stared at you for a moment. “Pride and Peace.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not…”

“I know, I know. But don’t worry, I did a good deed for society and told him not to mention any book ever. You and Deran are safe from now on. You’re welcome.”

And there it was again: that quiet amusement on his lips, the roll of his eyes like he couldn’t help himself, making you feel the stupid and dangerous need to continue to jest (keep talking, say anything, make him do it again).

He shook his head once. “C’mon Whitman. Let’s see what you got.”

You trailed after him without thinking and the first few attempts were…humiliating to say the least: your balance was nonexistent, your feet refused to cooperate, your arms stood uselessly at your sides, and you had absolutely no idea where you were supposed to look while Andrew hovered nearby like he was ready to intervene at any moment.

“I look stupid!” you complained.

“You’re fine.”

“I’m not fine! This is deeply humiliating. I can barely stay upright and there are twelve-year-olds doing tricks behind me! Tricks, Andrew!”

“You’re doing good.”

“I almost died.”

“You didn’t.”

“Socially, I assure you I did.”

Your heart did a stupid little skip when a tiny, amused sound escaped him.

(You could bottle that sound and live off it. You were now pretty sure you would commit crimes for it.)

“Makes sense you’re friends with Craig,” he muttered. “Dramatic.”

You gasped, unable to contain your grin. “Excuse you mister Cody, but I am layered! I am complex!”

He looked unimpressed and repeated “Dramatic.”

You opened your mouth to argue before your foot slipped, the board shooting forward, and for one horrible second you thought that worse than falling off in front of children was falling off in front of the guy you had a crush on.

But you never got to know the feeling before his hands were suddenly there, at your waist, catching you fast and steadying you while you became acutely aware of every nerve under his palms, of his thumbs grazing your hipbones, of his breath brushing your cheek as heat pooled between your legs.

He moved behind your back, still holding your waist before murmuring “Don’t lean and bend your knees.”

(You were starting to suspect he was fucking with you on purpose.)

But still, he adjusted you gently, palms rotating your hips and guiding your stance before kneeling to help place your legs on the board and you couldn’t stop yourself from blurting:

“I haven’t shaved my legs. Sorry.”

“Me neither.” He huffed, his breath warm on your calf and the faintest hint of amusement threading through his voice.

(Was that…a joke? Was he joking? Since when was he doing that? You liked that. You wanted that.)

Andrew pushed himself back on his feet, stepping away just enough for you to feel the sudden absence of his body, leaving you oddly cold, like you had stepped out of the sunlight.

“Try again.”

You nodded, realizing that his joke had somehow shaken the worst of your nerves away, before pushing off, your knees bent like he had shown you, your weight centered and the board rolled.

“Oh my God, I’m doing it! Andrew, I’m really doing it!” you exclaimed happily.

“You are.”

You risked a glance over your shoulder, and he was watching you with his usual careful intensity, hands half-raised and prepared to catch you, like protecting you was the only thing on his list right now.

So (naturally), you did the dumbest thing possible and tested him. Just a little bit. Just to know.

You leaned and let your weight tip forward just enough to know if…

His hands immediately caught you, his hands on your ribs, scanning up and down if you had been hurt, “You okay?”

You swallowed, realizing that you had never doubted a second he would be there. And that settled something warm and terrifying in your chest.

It was not a silly crush, not your friend’s brother that you thought was hot and interesting, no. It was falling. Headfirst, no parachute.

And judging by the way his hands hadn’t moved from your waist yet, you weren’t entirely sure he wasn’t falling a little too.

──────────

You are screaming and he is too late.

He is always too late.

Your voice breaks into something small and terrified, the kind of sound that doesn’t even feel human anymore, and he is running but his legs don’t cooperate, move in slow-motion, the floor stretching longer and longer beneath him and the house smells like chlorine, metal and something sour he recognizes too fast.

You’re in the pool, face down and the water is red. And you are so, so still. He tries to move, to drag you out, but he can’t.

You turn toward him, eyes open and your mouth spilling blood.

“You were supposed to be there, Andrew. Why weren’t you there?”

He jerks awake, his whole body snapping upright while air refuses to enter his lungs, a pain in his ribcage so intense he thinks it might split him open from the inside out.

He doesn’t understand why at first: why his pillow feels cold and damp to the touch, why his throat burns, until he drags a shaky hand across his face and touches something wet, the realization feeling nauseating.

He has been crying in his sleep for God knows how long.

He presses his palms hard into his eyes like maybe the pain will help him, like maybe if he suffers enough the images will disappear. That you won’t be floating face down in the pool, covered in blood, your blood, your voice joining all the others, the same disappointed tone he’s memorized over the years with his ghosts.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He tries to count but it doesn’t work.)

The house is quiet for once, too quiet, and Andrew has this awful, crawling sensation lodged under his sternum, something cold and irrational that he can’t help but spiral into.

(What if…No.)

He is already moving, because lying back down would mean closing his eyes again and he can’t, he fucking can’t risk seeing you like that again, can’t hear the sound of your voice pleading and begging for him to save you when you are already gone, can’t add you to the long list of ghosts that wait for him every night.

Halfway down the hall, he gets as quiet as he can manage, moving through the house like he is on a job, because it feels the same: this sick, urgent need to verify something, to be sure that you are here, that you are safe.

The living room is glowing faintly blue before he even steps in, the light spilling on the floor and he hears it: a narrator speaking about sharks and the distant sound of recorded waves.

You always pick sea life documentaries when you stay over.

He doesn’t know when you figured out he liked them.

He stops at the threshold and sees you: curled on the couch, hidden beneath a blanket and alive.

(Your chest rises. Then falls. Rises. Falls. You’re not floating. You’re not gone.)

His lungs finally unlock and he breathes sharply, the sound loud enough that you look up immediately, like you sensed him there, like you are now tuned to him in a way he doesn’t understand, and your expression softens the second you see his face.

“Hey,” you say, voice thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”

He nods automatically but knows that he can’t bullshit you.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine,” he manages, but the words come out wrecked and dragged through his throat.

Your eyes examine him slowly and it clicks behind them. “Nightmare?”

(Oh, he hates this word. Hates how small it makes him feel. Hates how childish it sounds. Hates how accurate it is.)

His jaw locks so hard it aches and he can’t force out anything more than a stiff, miserable nod, his nails digging crescent moons in his palms as he braces himself for questions, for having to justify why he is standing there at three in the morning, shaking over a bad dream. But you don’t push.

You just scrub a hand over your tired face before moving your legs and lifting the blanket, creating space beside you.

“Come here.” You mumble, looking at him, patient.

He crosses the room slowly, the couch dipping under his weight as he lowers himself beside you, hyperaware of every inch of distance, of your arm brushing his, of the warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your shirt, of how close your knee is to his thigh and how easy it would be to accidentally touch.

Your hand bumps his and even if he should pull away, he doesn’t. The contact is small, just skin against skin but for Andrew, it’s the closest to heaven he’s ever been.

Your fingers linger, uncertain, like you’re giving him time to decide, like he is allowed to decide. His thumb moves before he can stop it, brushing lightly over your knuckles, slowly, reverently, like he needs to make sure you are solid and not a trick of his mind. You feel warmer than him.

(Alive warm. Not water cold. Not bloody and floating. Not like in the pool.)

The memory hits so hard it hurts.

He jerks his hand back abruptly, his breathing going wrong again, shame creeping hot and fast because for a moment he wanted something and asked for it, letting the walls go down.

But you don’t comment, don’t tease and don’t pull away in response to his neediness and instead, you shift closer and you help settling the blanket over both of you, your arm following, tugging him in gently, like there has never been a version of this world where he wasn’t permitted to be here.

He stiffens when your hand finds the back of his neck and he wants to reassure you that it’s not because he wants it to stop but because he wants it too much, and he doesn’t deserve it. But your fingers brush his scalp, and suddenly he is nothing but starving for it, leaning toward it instinctively.

You guide him down gently, so gently and he can’t win this fight tonight, his ear pressing against your chest.

(Your heartbeat. Steady. There. One. Two. Three. Four. It’s there. You’re alive.)

The documentary keeps whispering about tides and sharks, but he barely hears it now because all he can focus on is the rhythm under his cheek and the way your fingers keep caressing his curls in slow strokes like you were calming a frightened wild animal.

He wants to move. To slide his arm around your waist. To press his face into your shirt and breathe you. To hold you tight enough so nothing could ever take you away.

But he stays still, terrified of ruining it and breaking something with the weight of his want.

Your fingers drift lower to cradle the back of his head while your other arm tightens around him and pull him fully into you, closing the remaining space between your two bodies. His relief is immediate and overwhelming, pulling a whimper out of him, emptying him of his thoughts.

His chest caves inward on a shaky exhale, his hand finally moving hesitantly until it rests lightly on your waist, barely touching and giving you room to pull away if you want to, but you don’t. You tuck him closer, your chin brushing his hair.

 “I’ve got you. You’re okay, Andrew, I promise. I’m here.”

The words land deep and it takes him a moment to realize he is sobbing in your arms, the tears soaking your shirt while he presses his forehead closer to your chest, just to confirm that the heartbeat under him is real.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your heart now.)

“Shh…It’s going to be okay, Andrew.”

The storm in his head – the ghosts, the pool, your voice – slowly quiets for the first time all night, dissolving under the simple, undeniable fact that you are here and breathing under his cheek, speaking to him, comforting him.

And somewhere, between one beat and the next, his body finally gives up the fight, his sobs stop, exhaustion dragging him under gently this time, no drowning, no screaming, just the steady rhythm of you and your quiet voice drifting above him.

“I’m not leaving Andrew.”

He knows that for tonight at least, no nightmare will come at him.

You promised.

──────────

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.”

Craig was the worst and you were absolutely going to kill him. Not even metaphorically, but in the sense where you would pick up the nearest heavy object and aim for his head the next time you saw him, if only you were able to find him right now instead of wandering through a house you didn’t know that smelled aggressively of weed and alcohol.

Deran and Andrew would forgive you, you were sure of it, if you murdered their brother under these circumstances. Hell, they might even help you bury the body. Because you could have had a regular evening at home, watching for the hundredth time Shawshank Redemption but no, you had to be alone in a stranger’s kitchen, trying not to panic.

The party had shifted, you felt it about twenty minutes ago.

It had stopped being loud fun and started being loud wrong when little bags started to be passed around, people disappearing in rooms and coming back with pupils blown wide and white powder on their nostrils.

You had looked for Craig. Texted him. Called. Nothing.

You had found someone who vaguely resembled one of the friends he introduced you to earlier, and when you asked if they had seen him, they laughed and replied something about “upstairs with Renn so it might take a while, Sweetheart,” and you stood there for a second, scared. Really scared.

Because you didn’t know anyone there, not really. And you were now surrounded by idiots who were snorting cocaine.

(Okay. Calm down. Breathe. Don’t cry. It doesn’t help your situation at all.)

A guy you didn’t recognize slid a drink toward you with a grin that lingered too long, and the fact that your very first thought was ‘I wonder if he put something in that’ made your decision for you: you were leaving. Immediately. Whatever Craig was doing upstairs with Renn was officially no longer your problem.

The night air hit your face, making you regret for the lack of jacket.

You stood on a sidewalk for a moment, trying to calculate the distance back to your apartment. You were too far, with no car and a phone at nine percent.

“Craig is dead. He is fucking dead. I will kill him myself,” you muttered under your breath as you started walking anyway, heels dangling in your hand, bare feet against the cold concrete, just to put some distance between you and the house.

But the further you got, the louder your heartbeat became, pounding in your ears, the fear crawling up your spine.

Still, you kept walking, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, repeating ‘You’ll be fine,’ over and over to your brain.

(You were not fine. You were alone. In the middle of the night. Walking barefoot down a street you didn’t know. Why were you like this? Why didn’t you just stay? Why didn’t you drag Craig out by his stupid hair to drive you back home?)

You didn’t want to try to call Craig again and waste your last percentage of battery on someone who would not answer.

And before you could talk yourself out of it, before you could rationalize or be embarrassed…your thumb was already pressing Andrew’s name.

(If you called him, he would come. He wouldn’t hesitate. You knew it.)

The phone only rang once before he picked up.

“Yes?”

That was all it took for you: the sound of his steady and low voice to make something inside your chest collapse, the fragile composure you had been clinging to dissolving instantly as you let out a shaky exhale, thanking all the Gods above for Andrew Cody’s existence.

“Andrew,” you said, your voice betraying you immediately with a crack right through the middle of his name. “I-I’m sorry. It’s late, I know. I just…”

“What happened.”

You swallowed, trying to force the tears to back down. “I’m at this party and…and Craig left. I mean…he is upstairs with Renn doing I don’t know what and he won’t answer me. I left the house because it got weird there and I’m trying to walk home but I think that was a stupid idea and I just…”

(You hated how your voice wobbled. How small it sounded. You should have bought pepper spray.)

“I’m so scared.”

In the background, you could hear keys jangling, a door closing and his truck starting.

“Where are you?”

No ‘why’, no ‘what were you thinking’. Just that.

You gave him the street name and the closest intersection you could see, wiping your face with the back of your hand and trying to steady your breathing so you didn’t sound like you were seconds away from a breakdown.

“I’ll be there in five.”

You let out a weak, disbelieving laugh. “It’s at least ten.”

“Five.”

The line went dead before you could argue, the call cutting off abruptly as your screen went black. Dead battery.

You stared at your reflection for half a second on the dark screen, heart hammering while you counted the seconds in your head, hoping that somehow it would summon him faster.

It took less than three hundred for you to see headlights cut around the corner of the street faster than the required speed limit, relief crashing into you. He didn’t even fully stop before the driver’s door was already swinging open, crossing the distance to you in three long strides, eyes sweeping over you from head to toe then past you to the houses.

“You okay?”

You nodded too quickly and he stared at you, jaw locked so hard you could see the muscles twitching. He looked furious.

“Get in,” he said, opening the passenger door, one hand braced on the roof as he helped you climb up into the seat, taking your shoes to put them in the back seat.

You stayed silent, not wanting to know to whom his anger was directed at. It was only once you were down the street that he finally spoke again, eyes flicking between the road and you.

“Did anyone hurt you?”

You blinked at him. “No.”

“Touch you?”

“No.”

“Follow you?”

You shook your head, watching his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel.

“Say anything to you?”

“Just…offered me stuff,” you admitted quietly, wrapping your arms around yourself again. “But I said no. I would never do that. You know I would not.”

You weren’t sure why you felt the need to add that, why you wanted him to understand that you hadn’t been reckless. That hanging out with Craig didn’t mean being like him. That you wouldn’t caught yourself in drugs. You knew better.

The streetlight caught the side of his face and for a split second you saw something raw there before it slipped behind his mask of control. The silence continued to stretch, heavy.

“Are you angry at me?”

The truck slowed to a stop at a red light, allowing him to turn his head toward you fully, eyes dark and intense in a way that made your whole body pulse in response, not from fear but from the weight of being seen.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said, holding your gaze. “I’m angry you were there alone. Angry that my stupid brother left you. Angry that I wasn’t there sooner. But not at you.”

The light shifted to green, but he didn’t move right away. His eyes remained locked on yours, unblinking, making sure you understood the distinction.

“You call me,” he added quietly. “The second you have a problem, you always call me. Okay?”

You nodded, fingers twisting in the fabric of your dress. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You don’t.”

And there was something in the way he said it, like he was wounded at the idea you thought you might ever be an inconvenience to him, that made you blush.

The truck finally rolled forward, but the air between you felt different, heavier in a way that you’ll only be to shake off with a cold shower.

You watched the way his shoulders remained tense all the way to your home and understood then that he had come because he had been frightened, that the thought of you alone in the dark had unsettled something in him, and that he had needed to fix it.

And the scariest part was that something warm and traitorous inside your chest responded to that.

You liked that he had been scared.

You liked that he came in less than three hundred seconds.

That he didn’t even hesitate when you admitted you were frightened, he simply moved.

And you liked the way he refused to let you walk barefoot to your apartment, carrying you, as if the idea of your skin touching the cold pavement was something he would not allow.

He didn’t put you down immediately. No, he held you all the way from his truck to your doorway, one arm firm beneath your legs and the other steady at your back, your shoes dangling loosely from his fingers, your body tucked close enough to feel his breathing through his shirt, making you aware of how easily you fit there.

When he finally set you down at your threshold, his hands lingered at your waist a second longer than necessary.

“You’ll be good?” he asked quietly, handing you your shoes, your fingers brushing his in the exchange.

You nodded, incapable of trusting your own voice, because if you opened your mouth, you were fairly certain that something reckless would fall out, something dangerously close to ‘stay’ and you were overwhelmed enough by the urge to step over, to reach for him and press your forehead against his chest just to see if his heart was still beating as fast as yours.

He was still staring at you, something unspoken passing like electricity.

“Good night,” he whispered, the softness of it almost undoing you.

“Good night, Andrew.”

You closed your door slowly, pressing your back against it, listening to his boots on the pavement, realizing that he hadn’t moved until he heard the lock click.

Only then did he walk back to his truck.

You would maybe not murder Craig after all.

──────────

Andrew spends the entire day watching for the moment you are going to change your mind and run from him.

And you don’t act differently when you wake up: you drink coffee while humming along to the songs on the radio, trying to coax a laugh out of him, but he keeps waiting for it anyway: the flicker in your eyes that says you’ve seen too much of him now, that holding him while he sobbed was enough to scare you off for good.

He replays the night while you are in the shower. How he cried in your arms. How your fingers combed through his curls. How you held him pressed against your chest. How he let himself need you.

He wonders if he should apologize, or explain, or at least even just…acknowledge that you saw him at his weakest and that he was thankful it was you.

Instead, he washes the dishes twice in a row to calm his brain, avoiding looking directly at your body when you step back into the kitchen in your coffee shop uniform, hair damp.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on his mug.)

You ask him if he is still taking you to the skatepark after your shift, and he wants to say no. The word sits right there on his tongue, ready to spill, because the park means proximity and proximity means touch and desire which always ends with something being taken away from him.

But you smile at him in such an open and easy way, and if it was something you really wanted to do, far be it from him to deny you after last night when you held him like he was something that could be saved, that was worth saving.

So, he nods and the way your whole face lights up makes him think, not for the first time, that he would probably give you anything you asked for.

That is the part of himself that scares him.

And now that he is finally at the skatepark with you on this late afternoon, he knows that he should be tracking your stance and foot placement the way he always does, but today he notices different things about you instead: how you are not pulling away from him, not avoiding him, how you stand close when you talk, lean into his space without hesitation.

And somehow that unsettles him more than distance would have. Because, if you are not afraid of him, if you are not stepping back after seeing what he is like during his worst nights, then what does that mean?

You sway on the board.

He sees it, but his brain is still half-caught in the memory of your heartbeat under his ear, still waiting for the recoil that doesn’t come and by the time his body reacts, you’re already too far from his reach.

You hit the concrete hands first, palms slamming down on instinct before your knees follow, the skin scraping on the ground with a sound that makes his stomach drop. The impact steals the air from your lungs and for a fraction of a second you manage to hold yourself up before your face strikes the ground with a sickening thud.

Andrew is already moving before you even understand what happened, the board rolling behind you while he drops to his knees so fast, he doesn’t register the sting tearing through his own skin, doesn’t feel the way his jeans split at the knee or how his knuckles scratch raw when he catches himself, because none of it matters to him. He is scanning, assessing and cataloguing the damage, forcing his mind to clear before he dares to touch you.

Your palms and knees are damaged through the torn denim, but it’s the blood beginning to run from your eyebrow that makes him feel abruptly cold. It gathers at the edge of your lashes and runs along the curve of your nose, bright red against your skin, and for a second, the world tilts.

(Blood. So much blood. He knows blood. Knows how to stop it. How to clean it. How to stitch it close. Pope is good with blood.)

The thought lands with cold precision, and even if he hates the name, even if it sounds wrong in his own head, he can’t afford to hate the part of himself that steps forward first right now - efficient Pope, steady Pope, the one who does not panic.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and his voice is low, measured, trying to reassure you the way you reassured him last night while he broke apart against your chest, even though his heart is hammering through his ribs.

Your eyes flutter, dazed, before you try to sit up, but he is already there, placing one hand at the back of your neck and the other on your shoulder to help you.

“It’s okay sweetheart, I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs, and there is something almost pleading behind his words that has less to do with your eyebrow and more to do with the memory of the pool and your voice accusing him of being too late.

He swipes his thumb gently beneath the cut to assess its depth, his other hand moving to brace your jaw so you don’t move, and when fresh blood coats the pad of his finger, he feels the familiar switch inside him flips into place.

(His breathing slows. His hands stop shaking. This he understands. This he can control.)

“It’s not deep,” he says after his inspection, even though he knows you’ll need stitches. “You still with me?”

Your hand lifts and finds his wrist, fingers curling around it, and the contact sends something through him that is not adrenaline and not fear but softer that frightens him more because it makes him aware of how much he needs you to be okay.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, though your voice is small.

He shakes his head once, tearing a strip from the hem of his shirt. “Let’s get you home so I can clean this properly, okay? Keep pressure there,” he instructs, guiding your hand back to your eyebrow and pressing it into place.

You nod, and that’s enough for him.

He slides one arm behind your back, his broad palm spanning the length of your shoulder blades, the other slipping beneath your knees to lift you, ignoring the sting of his knees and the sticky blood drying across his knuckles because none of it is important compared to the steady rhythm of your breath brushing his collarbone.

He carries you toward the truck, opening the door and lowering you carefully into the passenger seat, one hand coming up to your jaw, his thumb resting lightly on your cheekbone to make sure your eyes focus on him.

“Stay with me,” he says softly.

Your lips twitch despite the pain. “Bossy.”

He goes to buckle your seatbelt, adjusting the strap and closing the door gently before circling the truck, wiping his bloody hand against his jeans.

While driving back to your apartment, his eyes keep darting to you every few seconds.

“Talk to me,” he says after a moment.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

You take a moment before starting to talk about your day at the coffee shop, just mindless little moments. He doesn’t interrupt, he listens and nods at the right moments. You are grounding him on purpose, he realizes, dragging his thoughts back to something ordinary, something alive.

(You are not in the pool. You are breathing. You are not telling him he failed you. He counts your breaths.)

Inside your place, he works methodically, like he always does when someone comes back from a job hurt and bleeding – controlled, shutting everything else out. He lays out all your medical supplies on your desk with a precise spacing: first gauze then antiseptic, needle, sewing thread…The order is important. Order means control.

 You sit on the edge of your bed, looking at him and continuing the pressure of the piece of his shirt against your eyebrow.

“Alright,” he says quietly, stepping between your knees so he can reach your face properly. “Hold still.”

He cleans your palms first, his concentration absolute because his entire world has narrowed down to the square inch of skin beneath his fingers.

“I should have caught you.”

“It’s not your fault, Andrew. Don’t punish yourself for it, okay? I’m fine, I promise I’m fine.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t trust himself to.

Instead, he goes silent and returns to the work in front of him, bandaging thoroughly your hands before taking off your pants and doing the same with your knees, making sure everything stays in place.

Finally, he allows himself to look fully at your face again, examining the cut on your eyebrow and tilting your chin upward with two fingers, feeling your breath ghosting on his lips in the small space between you.

“You’re going to need stitches,” he murmurs.

You study him for a second. “You’re very serious about this.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not dying, Andrew.”

“I know.”

“You look at me like I am.”

His jaw tightens and for a moment, he almost says it. Almost tells you that in his head, he’s already seen that version of you, floating and gone, but he swallows it back.

“Hold still,” he says instead.

He cleans the wound carefully by dabbing away the dried blood, and when you flinch, his free hand comes up automatically to steady the side of your head, thumb resting near your temple, not commenting on the way you lean into that touch.

The first puncture makes you inhale sharply.

“Breathe,” he says low, “Just breathe slow for me.”

You obey, focusing on him rather than the pull of the thread, your eyes locking on his face. He works carefully, tying each stitch with precision, trying not to falter at your gaze and even less at the reckless, intrusive thought about pressing his mouth to your brow to undo the wound.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move right away. He studies the line of the sutures, checks for tension, checks for bleeding or anything he might have missed before studying you.

“You’re okay,” he says, trying to convince himself.

You give him a small, tired smile. “I told you. I’m tougher than I look,” you say before your gaze drops, narrowing as you notice what he has been deliberately ignoring. “Andrew.”

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

He shrugs, dismissive, trying to pull his hand back so you can’t look too closely. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing,” you murmur, reaching for him before he can retreat, your fingers tracing carefully over his knuckles, making him go still. “You can’t patch me up and ignore yourself.”

He swallows, and before he can argue, you’re already reaching for the antiseptic with your bandaged hand, fumbling slightly. He catches the bottle before you drop it, his other hand covering your instinctively.

“You shouldn’t…”

“None of that,” you interrupt, and there is a flicker of stubbornness there that makes his mouth twitch despite himself.

You tug his hand toward you, and this time he lets you clean the scrape on his hands. He doesn’t look at the wound. He looks at you.

At the crease between your brows as you concentrate. At the way your lips press together. At the way you treat his injuries as if they matter. No one ever does.

Your fingers tie the bandage clumsily but securely, and when you finish, you don’t let go right away. Your thumb lingers, stroking slowly over the back of his hand. He is not sure how to breathe. The room feels so much smaller now. Quieter?

You lift your eyes up to him and whisper. “Can you stay? Just for a bit. So…we can check on each other.”

He could tell you it’s starting to get late and he was supposed to meet Deran and Craig for their next job. He could tell you he’ll call you tonight to see how you feel.

But there is nothing in him that wants to leave this room.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I can stay.”

He helps you shift properly onto the bed, careful of your knees. When you lie back against the pillows, you reach for him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

It takes him a second of hesitation before lying down beside you, stiff at first, but you roll toward him, your bandaged hands pressing against his chest as you settle close, your head finding the space beneath his chin.

He exhales through his nose before lifting his arms and resting them around you.

After a few minutes of silence, when he thinks you might already be drifting, you murmur. “I like it when you called me sweetheart.”

He presses his mouth lightly into your hair.

“Go to sleep now.”

You nod, your body going slack after a few minutes while he stays wide awake, his hands moving slowly along your spine.

“You scared me,” he whispers into the quiet, once he is sure you’re gone.

His fingers move to brush lightly just above the stitches of your brow.

“I can’t lose you,” he breathes, pressing his forehead gently against yours.

(He counts your breathing. One. Two. Three. Four. Not because he is afraid. But because he simply likes knowing the rhythm.)

When sleep finally comes at him, he knows there won’t be any nightmare.

Because you’re there.

──────────

You did not mean to end up alone with Deran.

In fact, if you were being completely honest with yourself, you had carefully avoided being alone with him since you met, not because he had been hostile to you, but because he seemed to have this unnerving habit of seeing through people and you were not a fan of subjecting yourself to that.

Craig had dragged you to the bar “just for a bit,” (which in Craig language meant ‘indefinitely’) before promptly disappearing with a girl, leaving you at the counter, nursing a soda because you had work in the morning.

Deran was wiping down the bar in front of you.

“El Craigo has already left?” he asked without looking up.

“’Flee’ would be a better word to describe what happened.”

“And so now you’re just…” he gestured vaguely toward you with the cloth, “…miserably contemplating on drowning yourself in your drink?”

“It’s a soda.”

“You know what? That’s so much sadder.”

You exhaled, dragging a hand over your face before saying, “Can I ask you something without you telling Craig?”

That caught his attention immediately, making him glance up.

“Depends how embarrassing it is.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” you protested automatically, then faltered. “Fine. It’s…a little embarrassing.”

“A little?”

“A lot,” you admitted.

He huffed once, almost amused, tossing the cloth over his shoulder. “Fine. What?”

You took a breath, suddenly aware of how absurd this was and how you were feeling like you were sixteen instead of twenty-nine. “It’s…” you cleared your throat. “It’s about Andrew.”

(Fuck. This was so deeply humiliating. But Craig was not an option. He would weaponize the information and never let you live it down.)

Deran blinked once before leaning his forearms on the counter, a smirk spreading on his lips. “Oh, I see.”

You groaned immediately. “Oh, please, can you not react like that? You’re making this worse.”

“I haven’t reacted! I’m just…not quite surprised about this discussion. Come on.” he waved a hand. “What’s your question?”

“It’s just…” you stopped. “I don’t know how to tell if he…”

(Oh my God. You had faced worst things than this. You could finish a sentence.)

Deran tilted his face slightly, with a shit-eating grin that you absolutely hated. “If he…what?”

“If he likes me,” you blurted out in one breath.

The silence fell for exactly two seconds before he let out a short, incredulous laugh.

“You’re fucking with me. Right?”

Your face burned instantly. “Okay, great. Never mind, I’m just gonna dig my gra-”

“Easy tiger. Don’t get your panties in a twist. He’s obsessed with you.”

You stopped, your stomach flipping violently.

“That’s not true.”

“It is deeply true,” Deran replied flatly. “He reorganized the shelves in the kitchen.”

You blinked. “Well…I thought he just liked order.”

“Oh yeah, he does. Trust me, he fucking does. But…not that much.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“Surely that doesn’t mean…”

“He drove across town at three in the morning to get you out of a party,” Deran continued, counting off on his fingers now. “He cancels family meetings to go to the skatepark with you. He did his ‘scary stare’ to me the last time I drank in your mug.”

Heat crept up your cheeks as you stammered, throat dry. “B-But he doesn’t…He doesn’t say anything.”

Deran snorted. “Yeah, that’s Andrew.”

“It’s just...sometimes I don’t even know what he’s thinking.”

“Neither do we,” he deadpanned. “Welcome to the family.”

You exhaled, frustration spilling over. “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

Deran considered you for a moment. “Just…let him try to go at his own pace here. He is not good at the whole…relationship thing.” he said, his voice stripped of its usual sarcasm before adding. “And for the record, the way you look at him? Not subtle. Like, at all.”

You nearly choked on your own spit. “I am subtle!”

“I mean, yes,” he conceded dryly. “You are subtle…for Andrew and Craig. So don’t be proud about it. That’s the lowest level of subtility possible.”

“I hate you, Deran.”

“Yeah?” he replied with an amused smile. “Well, get in line.”

There was a pause before he said quietly. “You’re good for him. Just…don’t screw it up. You’re in the tribe now. Which means I have to tell you this…”

You straightened slightly.

“…if you’re not sure about this, about yourself, you go now. Not in a few months. Not after he lets himself think this might be real. You don’t get to backpedal if it gets complicated. He wouldn’t recover from it.”

You shook your head immediately. “I swear, I won’t hurt him. He’s…he’s-”

You stopped, because the word felt too large to say aloud. But Deran looked at you intensely enough for you to finish.

“He’s important. To me. I don’t want to fix him, because I don’t think he’s broken. I like him the way he is. I...I think I wouldn’t recover from losing him too.”

Deran held your gaze for a long moment. “Alright.”

You tilted your head. “Alright?”

“Alright,” he repeated. “You pass.”

“Was-Was it an interview? Are you serious?”

“Yep. And congrats, you got the job.”

You rolled your eyes, but your chest felt lighter than it had in quite some time while Deran smiled, a real full grin, almost boyish, making it easier to see the younger brother under his usual cryptic attitude.

“I forgot what it was like,” he said after a beat.

“What?” you asked.

“Having a sister you can annoy.”

“That’s…extremely sweet of you.”

“Don’t ruin it,” he warned, pointing the towel at you. “I will absolutely deny this conversation ever happened if you mention it to my brothers.”

You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head.

Then, he leaned forward and whispered to you. “And if you hurt him, I’m stealing your car and slashing your tires.”

“O-Okay.”

He had a little smile before straightening up. “Welcome into the family.”

──────────

He has not told you.

No one has told you about the job.

Craig said it wasn’t necessary, that you would make a big deal out of it. Deran said it was cleaner that way, the less people know, the less risk and Andrew didn’t argue, telling himself it was better if you didn’t know the details, better if you didn’t have to sit there, waiting for them to come back and spiraling about what could be happening to them.

He told himself that ignorance would keep you safe.

The screen door slams and your voice, sharper than he has ever heard it is rising against Craig, who’s following you in the backyard like a kicked puppy.

Andrew doesn’t turn immediately from his spot, staring at the water of the pool. He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the loud noises.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the tiles of the pool.)

“You asked me to babysit Nick,” you’re saying, your voice shaking like you are about to start crying, “and you made it sound like it was for a date or something stupid! You didn’t say it was because you were going to fucking rob a jewelry store!”

“Jesus, lower your voice.”

“Lower my voice? How about you shut your mouth you liar!”

It isn’t only outrage in your voice, Andrew feels it. It’s fear. A raw, unfiltered fear for them. For him. And he doesn’t know what to do with that because no one has ever been afraid of losing him. When he went to prison years ago, his family moved on, sold his place and went on with their lives. For them, it was an inconvenience, for him, it was three years in Folsom.

Andrew turns then.

You’re standing a few feet from Craig, hands still bandaged, the thin line of stitches above your eyebrow visible, pointing a finger at Craig angrily while he tries to stay calm, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re breaking into a jewelry store, Craig. That’s not exactly Disneyland.”

“We’ve done jobs for years,” he snaps. “We’re good at it.”

Andrew watches the way your shoulders rise and fall too fast with your breath, the way your fingers flex like you’re resisting the urge to grab something and throw it at Craig.

“You know what happens if you get caught, right? You know what that would do to Nick?”

Craig’s jaw tightens. “We don’t get caught.”

You let out a bitter sound that is half a laugh, half a sob.

“Repeat this in the eyes of your brother, I fucking dare you. That’s not how life works, and you know it. You can get caught.”

Andrew feels the words hit him in the chest and rip something out of him. He doesn’t know when you learn about it. Doesn’t know who told you or the extent of your knowledge about those three years of fights and isolation.

If you know – truly know - why aren’t you running away? Why are you still here?

(He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. It’s too much. It’s too little. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks on the floor.)

“We’re not idiots, just trust us, okay?” Craig argues, rolling his eyes.

“You left me alone at a party in a house full of people doing coke,” you fire back, your finger jabbing hard against his chest. “You are the exact definition of an idiot, Craig.”

Craig winces. “We don’t have to do this right now, okay? I already told you I was sorry about it. Pope, back me up.”

Both of you turn toward him at once, the weight of the fight landing on his shoulders. He doesn’t move immediately. Doesn’t speak either. Andrew has never been good at splitting himself in two, at giving his opinion. He was raised to follow orders.

Craig gestures toward you. “She’s acting like we’re amateurs.”

You slap his arm, wincing, forgetting for a moment about your bandage. “Fuck.”

Andrew walks up to you, checking your hand while you keep repeating him. “I’m okay, Andrew. I promise.”

He lifts his eyes to yours, angling his head to catch them, and when your gaze finally locks with his, he holds it, stubborn and unblinking. Your eyes shine brighter tonight than they usually do, so he doesn’t give himself permission to look away.

(You’re about to cry. It’s his fault. It must be his fault. He should have been better. But the voices are too loud. He doesn’t like when it’s too loud. One. Two. Three. Four. He remembers your breaths when you sleep.)

“I just…I thought you all trusted me,” you say, your voice breaking halfway through, fighting back tears of frustration.

Craig’s shoulders drop while Andrew’s thumb strokes over the back of your hand, grounding himself.

“We do,” Craig says, less combative now. “That’s why I asked you to watch Nick.”

“That’s not making me feel like you trust me. It’s making me feel like I’m a convenience.”

The word hangs there, making Andrew feel like he failed something. He has never wanted you to feel like this. He wanted you to be protected.

His gaze doesn’t waver as he keeps your hand in his, stroking over the bandage.

Craig looks between the two of you, seeing the hand, the closeness and mutters, “Jesus, bro, this is the worst time,” under his breath.

“Okay,” he exhales finally, turning fully toward you. “I fucked up. Massively. About the party. About not telling you. About…probably a million other things. I didn’t mean for you to feel unsafe.”

You don’t look convinced.

“Trust me,” Craig adds quickly, throwing Andrew a sideways glance, “I got my ass kicked enough by Pope to regret this party for the rest of my life.”

Your lips twitch a little, trying to keep it contain.

“Now, if you could hand me back my brother, I would be very grateful because we have a job to do, and you have a kid to entertain,” Craig says, rolling his eyes and retreating inside the house.

Andrew doesn’t let go of your hand, refusing to blink and terrified of losing a moment of you. He has the irrational feeling that if he does, something will waver on your face, the moment when you realize what this life looks like and he won’t be able to see his failure in time.

 “We’ve planned it,” he murmurs finally.

You hold his gaze. “And if something goes wrong?”

He doesn’t answer right away because he knows the answer to this, and he is certain you don’t want to hear it.

(If something goes wrong, he goes down first. He makes sure Deran and Craig are safe. He doesn’t come home because he won’t ever go back to prison. He prefers to die trying to escape than go back in a cell. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your eyelashes.)

You are still waiting, searching his face.

“Then I handle it,” he says quietly.

You shake your head, your jaw working as if you’re trying to physically hold yourself together. “Promise me to come back safe.”

His hand lifts before he can stop himself to settle against the side of your face, his thumb resting just beneath your eye, making you go very still, waiting for what he will do next.

His thumb caresses your cheekbone once, just enough to fill his mind with the memory of your skin.

“I won’t let anything happen to me,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know if it’s meant as a vow or a lie he’s trying to force into becoming true. “I promise,” and before he allows himself to overthink it, he presses a careful kiss to your forehead, his lips brushing just above the line of stitches.

He can hear you catch your breath and it makes him pull back, his lips tingling at the contact. He knows it now: if he stays longer, if he lets himself feel the warmth of you, he might not leave at all.

He memorizes the sight of you like this: looking like losing him would break you and it does something unfamiliar to his chest. No one has ever been scared at the thought of him disappearing. No one has ever demanded that he come back.

He turns quickly, putting distance between the two of you before he changes his mind, the promise he made echoing in his head.

He hears it when Deran cuts the alarms. Promise me to come back safe. When he cuts through the back entrance. Promise me. And when Craig tries to improvise. Promise. He is not one to do reckless things but tonight, he is particularly unyielding each time the job almost goes sideways.

He knows you are in the house with Nick, probably pacing the kitchen and waiting to see the outcome of his word. So, when he finally reaches the main display room, he is quick to reach for the highest value pieces that will be cut down and reshaped. No traces or evidence will be left, they have done this long enough to know how to make everything disappear completely.

Andrew’s hand hovers for half a second over a particular velvet cushion before picking up the thin gold chain, a small heart-shaped pendant set in the center. It’s delicate and quiet, reminding him how it feels to bask in your light. He turns it between his fingers once, twice, imagining it resting just below the hollow of your throat, his thumb brushing over it absentmindedly while you are both sitting on the couch and watching a documentary.

He slips it securely into the inner pocket of his jacket, pressing it flat against his chest for a brief second before stepping back into motion and leaving with his brothers without any alarms or police sirens cutting through the night.

And when they get at the warehouse to stash the duffel bags, Andrew doesn’t stay like he usually would to make sure about getting his fair cut of the job. He nods once, quiet, ignoring their snickers and comments about him being ‘down bad’ all the way to his truck.

The house is dim when he enters, a soft glow coming from Craig’s bedroom and before he sees you, he hears your voice. It’s so soft.

“And baby whale swam all the way across the ocean to find mama whale,” you murmur.

He quietly walks up to the threshold to see you sitting on the bed with Nick lying, his eyes dropping with sleep, his thumb in his mouth and clutching to his monkey plushie. You slowly close the illustrated book before pressing a kiss onto the his hair and something expands in Andrew’s.

(You would be good at this. At building something steady. He can picture you pregnant, swelling with a child. His curls and your smile on a being that would never know the kind of hurt he had to go through.)

You stand up from the bed and see him, the relief crossing your face so achingly tender it nearly knocks the breath from his lungs.

“Andrew.”

He nods once, trying to convey his feelings, “I came back.”

You smile, closing the bedroom door behind you and stepping close to him, scanning for injuries the way he did for you at the skatepark. He lifts his hands, showing you his palms.

“I’m fine. I promised you I would.”

Your shoulders drop in a way that tells him you’ve been holding yourself rigid for hours, managing a barely audible, “Thank God.”

His lips tilt upward before reaching into his jacket’s pocket, “Turn around,” before adding a quiet, “Please.”

“Bossy,” you reply, amused, before turning your back to him.

He closes the one last step between you, pulling out the necklace from his pocket, careful not to let his hands shake as he lifts your hair to expose the back on your neck. He fastens the chain, the clasp clicking softly into place and for a second he doesn’t step away, the pad of his thumb grazing at the nape of your neck.

“Andrew,” you whisper, turning back toward him, your fingers lifting to trace it. “It’s…It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

He keeps staring at the pendant who rests exactly where he imagined it would be, then at your mouth before quickly going back to your eyes. You are close enough that he can feel your breath on his face, the world narrowing to the space between you.

He wants to close the distance, to press his mouth to yours.

Instead, he rests his forehead gently against yours, grounding himself with your scent, refusing to close his eyes.

“You should sleep,” he murmurs.

You smile softly and suddenly, Andrew wonders how he can extract a memory and preserve it forever in resin.

Because this moment feels like the dawn of his existence.

──────────

When Andrew was seven years old, the house was already too loud.

Somewhere down the hall a door slammed hard enough to be heard from the bedroom he shared with Julia, who was sitting on the floor with a deck of cards spread between them while he lined them into exact rows instead of playing War.

He liked the rows and the symmetry of it. It calmed him each time the edges were precisely following the pattern of the carpet. With this, he didn’t need to count.

In the backyard, someone shouted about money, making the twins flinch in fear. Julia reached for his hand, and they sat like that for a long time: her fingers curled tightly around his, his eyes fixed on the the cards. (Hearts. Diamonds. Clubs. Spades. Everything will be all right.)

Smurf emerged in the doorway with her bright smile, eight months pregnant with their little brother, tilting her head, “My baby is a strange one,” she whispers to his new stepfather, “But useful.”

Andrew heard it. He didn’t know what strange meant exactly, but he knew it was something you said when you didn’t want to say wrong.

At school, boys kept snatching his skateboard, tossing it across the asphalt because he rode the same loop over and over during recess, memorizing how many pushes it took to reach the fence.

(Fourteen. Fourteen every time. An even number. He liked them. That’s why he always counted till four.)

The first time a boy shoved him and called him a freak, Andrew didn’t respond. Just took back the board and kept doing his loops. The second time, when the board got kicked away and Julia was not there to held his hand, Andrew swung without warning. He couldn’t remember deciding to, just the sound of the impact and how the noise inside him went blissfully silent.

After that, teachers called him difficult, the kids stopped approaching him and Smurf congratulated him with a kiss on his mouth.

At night, when Julia was asleep beside him, Andrew kept staring at the ceiling, wondering something he couldn’t say out loud to his mother or his sister: would anyone ever see that he was trying? Trying to keep himself together so he didn’t explode? Trying to be good? Trying to stop the noises in his head?

-

When you were seven years old, the house smelled like warm cookies.

You were sitting on the couch, your small arms cradling your cousin, afraid to drop her. You didn’t know how to act with a baby. Your parents had sat you down a few months ago at the kitchen table and told you that you were their little miracle, that Santa sometimes forgot things and that maybe it would always just be the three of you – which sounded a little sad until your father had squeezed your hand and told you that three was already perfect.

But it was alright, because now, you had your cousin’s fingers clutching onto your hair, “She’s holding me!” you squealed, delighted and in awe because here, in this house, you were allowed to be amazed and to grow at your own pace.

The day you scraped your knee on the sidewalk, trying to teach yourself how to roller skate, you cried for less than a minute before your mother knelt in front of you, cleaning the wound and kissing the sting away. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said, and you believed her.

At school, you had a best friend who whispered to you how babies were made, and that made you giggle all day, the teacher shaking his head and calling you incorrigible, even though you had no idea what that meant and decided it must be something wonderful if it made you laugh that hard.

And the day you asked what you could be when you grew up, no one laughed. “You can be anything my little monkey,” your father had told you, and you thought about it for the whole day. Because anything was a lot for your brain: a teacher, a vet, a marine biologist. You always circled back to the same answer: something to help people.

And at night, as you looked at your glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, you wondered about other things: would someone look at you the way your father looked at your mother when she was singing in the kitchen, with that love that said I am home?

──────────

Deran’s bar is louder than usual tonight, crowded by sports fans watching a game between Los Angeles and Atlanta. Craig has tried to tell him why it was so important to win at least five times since their arrival, but Andrew’s attention remains elsewhere entirely, watching you from across the room the way he has been watching you for four months now: trying to read something in your posture or in the tilt of your head that could give him an answer.

Because the truth is…he doesn’t know what you are after last night and if what happened in the hallway, or every night you’ve spent wrapped together, mean the same thing to you that they mean to him. He wants to ask, to spill the question out before it eats him alive: what are we?

Andrew hates not knowing. On a job, he knows every camera, every blind spot, every possible way things can go wrong but with you, there’s no map. And he hates that he can’t predict your next move.

You are standing at the bar, ordering a drink, your back half-turned to him and wearing a dress that shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public. It makes his pants grow tighter and has him readjusting on the stool, trying to pretend he isn’t affected while his brother sits three feet away and would never let him live it down if he knew.

And he knows he shouldn’t be staring, but you keep touching absentmindedly the necklace, your fingers tracing the pendant as it moves with your breathing, and before he can stop himself, he’s counting it.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

You had said thank you last night in a way that felt like you meant something more, had let him secure the necklace around your neck and had met his eyes when you called it beautiful as if you were promising you would always wear it.

Always.

(Oh, how he doesn’t trust that word. Doesn’t trust anything that implies staying. He knows better. He should know better.)

And yet, there you are, wearing it for everyone to see, which does nothing to steady his accelerated pulse, and leaning across the counter to collect your cocktail from Deran. The movement doesn’t reveal much more of your skin, but it still sets ablaze Andrew’s brain, his lips going dry as he tries to resist the urge to walk up to you and beg for you to tell him that he isn’t the only one picturing rings, and a cradle in a quiet house and your head on his chest until he is old and grey.

“You’re not being subtle, you know that?” Craig says, cutting through the haze of his thoughts.

“Don’t start.”

Craig raises his hands innocently. “Jesus, relax.” He immediately reaches for the bowl of peanuts on the table, and Andrew feels his jaw tighten at the thought of how many unwashed hands have touched that bowl already. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you tonight?”

What’s wrong is that he just stole diamonds worth more than all of the jobs he did last year and it doesn’t compete to the way you look with the chain resting against your collarbone.

What’s wrong is that he would give back every dollar from last night if it meant waking up beside you for the next fifty years.

What’s wrong is that he is one second away from walking across that bar and lowering himself at your feet for your hands to baptize him clean, as if loving you were the only absolution worth asking for because whatever heaven exists for a man like him begins and ends with you.

And what’s wrong right now is that a man slides into the empty space beside you, leaning too close and touching your arm to get your attention. You turn toward him politely, your lips curving into the small smile you once called your ‘customer smile’.  You had explained it to his brothers and him: that you always kept the worst-case scenario in the back of your mind and that a smile felt safer than a hard no since it could mean the difference between walking away or not.

(Andrew doesn’t know the names or the faces of those who made you feel like that but he wants to find them. He wants to press them on the ground and feel their pulse panic under his thumbs. He wants them to understand what fear tastes like when it turns metallic into the mouth. He wants the air stolen from their lungs the way it must have been stolen from yours when you felt scared. He no longer wants to count. He wants to hurt. To see this man’s blood on the bar.)

Andrew starts walking towards you before he even formulates the thought, shoulders squared, already calculating how much force it would require to grab the stranger by the collar and steer him outside of the bar.

His vision narrows as he sees the stranger laughing, his hand lifting to linger near your elbow as if he was testing whether he can push for more and that makes Andrew’s vision blur at the edges. He is three steps away. Two.

Your eyes find his instantly, and something shifts in your expression. Your hand leaves the cocktail and you smile at him. It’s not the customer smile. No, it’s the real one that unravels him each time.

“Hey, honey,” you say brightly as your arm wraps around his neck and you press a kiss to his cheek, your hand traveling down his side before sliding into the back pocket of his pants, settling against him.

Andrew is almost sure he died at some point on the way there because he is pressed against you and now, he is no longer Andrew or Pope. For a brief moment, he gets to just be honey, and the word makes him happier than any name ever has.

The stranger glances between you. “Oh. I didn’t realize…”

“My boyfriend,” you cut him off with a smile, looking up at Andrew’s face.

His eyes were already on yours, searching for the smallest flicker of fear. Because if the man has dared put some in them, Andrew would dig an unmarked grave without blinking. When he finds none, his hand comes to your waist, his thumb strolling along your hip as he dips his head and presses his mouth above the faint line of stitches on your forehead.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs, low enough that the word belongs only to you.

He feels your breath hitch against his skin before turning to the man and saying lightly. “No worries, he always gets a little intense about men crowding me,” you tilt your head, thoughtful. “Not sure if it’s the boxing or the prison time. But don’t mind him…he almost doesn’t bite.”

The stranger’s smile falters just enough to satisfy something dark in Andrew’s chest. “Oh, um…yeah. Sorry man, I didn’t know she was taken.”

Andrew doesn’t raise his voice or move, he just stands there with your hand in his pocket, letting the silence stretch until it feels suffocating. “She is.”

“Right. I’ll go back to…the match.”

Andrew doesn’t blink and keeps track of the man’s back until he is laughing again at his friends’ table like nothing happened and only then does he let his focus shift back to you. You, who’s still close and warm, holding onto him like you have no intention of letting go.

His hand remains at your waist as he turns toward you, the movement bringing your faces close enough that your noses almost brush and your breaths mix between you. He lowers his head slightly, almost enough to kiss you.

“You okay?” he murmurs while his thumb keeps its slow movement on your hip.

You nod, your mouth curving up in that smile he loves. The real one. The one that you have at the skatepark each time you manage to stay upright a little longer than the day before: proud, bright and stubbornly pleased of yourself. And he can’t help but think about those lips and the way they said ‘honey’.

(He wants to hear it again. Wants to hear it softly. Wants to hear it moaned in the dark and against his mouth. He wants to kiss them every day for the rest of his life. To learn them. To know how they would part as he pounds into you. Stop. He has to stop.)

He blinks twice, grounding himself in the feel of your waist.

“Andrew. I’m good, I promise,” you murmur, sliding your hand out of his pocket and lace your fingers with his instead, interlocking them. “Let’s get out of here, please. It’s too loud.”

He doesn’t say it out loud, but relief settles at your suggestion. The bar feels too loud, too crowded and the idea of how many unwashed hands like Craig’s have been over the counters keeps coming back at him. So, when you tug gently at his hand and turn toward the door, he follows without hesitation, grateful that you were the one saying it.

The door swings shut behind you and the noise from the bar dulls instantly, reduced to a muted thud. The air is cooler than inside, smelling like the salt of the ocean mixed with your shampoo and he doesn’t understand how he gets to still have your hand in his and your thumb moving across his knuckles.

It’s only when you stop beside the truck and turn toward him that his eyes drop to the thin gold chain resting around your neck. His free hand lifts carefully to brush the chain first, following it down until the pad of his thumb rests over the pendant itself, flattening it against your skin.

“Still got it on,” he murmurs, tracing the outline of the pendant.

(He imagines doing this, years from now. In the kitchen. In bed. In the shower. Adjusting it before you leave the house. Brushing it aside before he kisses the curve of your throat. Seeing it against your skin when you are carrying his child.)

“Looks better on you than it did in the store,” he adds.

Your fingers slide slowly between his, guiding his hand so it settles flat over your heartbeat. He can feel it beating loud and fast under his palm, matching his own.

You tilt your face enough to find his eyes back. “Thank you for what happened in there, Andrew. You were good.”

His eyes slip shut for half a second because he doesn’t trust himself to survive the way you are looking at him, smiling at him with such warmth he shivers of pleasure.

(Good. You think he is good. If that’s what you want, he can be good. He can kneel. He can find how to rebuild himself from the bones if it means you keep calling him good.)

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he says under his breath.

“Why?”

“Because I’d do anything if you asked.”

Your fingers start to caress the back of his hand. “Anything?”

He nods, his gaze unwaveringly focused on your eyes. “If you told me to walk away from the jobs, I would.”

Your hand pauses against his.

“Andrew…” you murmur, but there’s no panic in it, no immediate rejection. “You know why I wanted to reject him, right?”

He doesn’t answer, too scared of startling the moment with another word.

“You know why I’d reject any other guy in that bar and why I wanted him to know?”

“Know what?”

“That I’m not available.”

“You’re not?” he asks, as his mind races.

“I don’t know,” you say softly. “Are you?”

The question hangs there, in the small space between your bodies, his mind fumbling with a thousand overlapping questions.

(Are you with him? Calling him yours? Defining what this was? Finally answering the question that has been rattling his brain for weeks?)

“Are you available Andrew?” you repeat gently, your hand lifting up to cup his face.

He exhales slowly, trying not to whimper at the contact, shaking his head.

You lean closer, your nose brushing his and your voice dropping lower. “No?”

“No.”

Your thumb traces patterns along his cheekbone and it takes him a few moments to realize that you were mapping his freckles. “How long?” you whisper.

He feels too weak to reply, overwhelmed by the tenderness of your touch. If his heart had not been already yours, he would lay it at your feet right there, so long as you promise to treat him with this gentleness and care for the rest of his life.

“Before the party? When I called you to help me?” he nods. “Before our night on the couch?” another nod. “Before our first skateboard le-?”

 “When we met. And you brought pastries,” he replies, on the verge of a sob, shameful to confess that he keeps thinking about you on top of him, under him, any way you want it as long as he could disappear into your light and be drown whole by your grace to wipe out every horror he has ever seen or done for the sake of others.

“Andrew. Honey. Please, look at me.”

He keeps his gaze darted to the ground, like looking anywhere but you might prevent him from saying anything more revealing about the depth of his feelings, before his eyes close on their own instinctively, only realizing a heartbeat later that it’s because your lips found his.

And for the first time in Andrew’s life, that deep pit of misery in his heart goes completely silent, frozen for a flash before kissing you back.

Your lips are warm and a little reckless, tasting like mint and something entirely yours that he knows he will crave for the rest of his life. Your fingers thread into his curls, pulling a groan he can’t control out of him. He moves closer without thinking, his hand sliding along your waist until your back meets the metal of the truck door.

The second he registers the force of it, he pulls back just enough to search your face, to scan for any sign that he has gone too far, but the pause barely lasts a breath before your fingers tighten in his hair, guiding him back down as your body arched into his, slipping his tongue past your parted lips.

You are an oasis and he is nothing but a thirsty man wandering in the dark who gets to finally know what it’s like to drink every drop of it. You taste dizzy and intoxicating and he knows that he has been feeding on scraps of affection all his life and now…now he understands what it means to be full.

He is about to tell you how much sweeter you taste than in his fantasies before you bite down on his lower lip, drawing another sound of his throat.

You tilt your head, your arms wrapping fully around his neck as his drop to your hips, steady and sure, to raise you higher against the door, a gasp spilling out of you that he swallows eagerly and your dress hiking up as your legs wrap around him, denying any space between your bodies.

He feels you pull away for air by an inch or two, making him whine at the loss of contact, but he quickly recovers as he sees the flushed smile on your kiss-swollen lips. “Show off.”

“Yeah?” he asks while one of his arms tightens under you, anchoring your body to the door while the other frees itself to trail up your body and adding a smug, “Yeah,” skimming your inner thigh and marveling at how many sounds he can coax out of you, wondering how much more he’d pull if he could trace his thumb along your heat. But instead, he cups again your cheek, tracing slowly the bow of your lips.

“Dimples,” you murmur.

“What?”

“Dimples, Andrew,” you repeat, delighted, like you’ve just discovered something rare. “I didn’t know you had them.”

(Oh. Of course. You can see them because he is smiling. For real. A real one. Not the tight, guarded version. Not the twitchy one. A full unguarded smile. When was the last time he did that?)

“I do,” he says, trying and failing to smooth it away. “So do you.”

Your eyebrows lift. “I do not.”

“You do,” he insists quietly, shifting his hold slightly to keep his arm secure around you, his thumb pressing gently at the corner of your mouth. “Right there…”

Inside the bar, the crowd erupts in a wave of shouting, making you glance at the door before erupting in laughter, eyes wide.

“Oh, fuck,” you whisper, incapable of stopping your giggles. “I forgot.”

Andrew exhales through his nose, trying to calm the blood pumping hard all the way down his length. He knows that you’ve been feeling him against you the whole time, your hips still rubbing together, and for once in his life, he doesn’t want to excuse himself or feel ashamed of his desires, of how much he wants. He has spent too many nights thinking about how you’d taste, how you’d moan. Too many cold showers to try get rid of his hard-on whenever he was picturing you.

“Maybe…” you murmur against his mouth, pecking soft kisses along his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

He looks at you, at the way your lips are still swollen and glistening from kissing, at your panting and the tremors of your legs.

He nods, lowering you carefully back onto your feet, his hands still trailing along your sides to still have some ways of being connected to you before reaching for the door handle of the passenger seat and helping you in.

He feels, walking around to the driver’s side, that he is still smiling. Dimples and all.

──────────

“Maybe…” you sigh, struggling to keep your composure and pressing kisses along the freckles dusting his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

The intensity of his eyes on you, trailing along your body and taking in your rampant arousal, feels like he is on the verge of taking you against the door. You are pretty sure that if he’d ask you for permission, you’d grant it promptly. You want him. You want to know how long it would take for his unwavering hazel eyes to become pleading wet just by your lips telling how good he is to you.

But he just nods, jaw tight before lowering you carefully back onto your feet, making you bite down a protest at the loss of contact, like even the air feels like too much distance, until you feel his fingertips dragging over your waist.

He opens the door for you and not so long ago, you would have described his current behavior as controlled and cold, but now that you know him…you recognize a man who’s trying to contain himself, like a wild animal finally freed.

(Devour. You want him to devour you. To ruin you. Four months of trying – miserably – to have a date with him and it took only a gross man and a ‘honey’ to get him to kiss you like that and tell you he would quit everything?  Fuck. Focus.)

He starts the engine, snapping you out of your thoughts, before pulling out of the parking lot, still smiling. You stare at his profile: the line of his jaw that has now faint traces of your lipstick, the way his tongue briefly drags across his lower lips like he can still taste you and his hand on the gear shift that slowly drifts to your thigh.

Your breath stutters the moment his palm settles just above your knee, the pads of his fingers tracing patterns over it while he keeps his eyes on the road. That definitely doesn’t help your craving for more.

(How much can be a fine for having sex in a car anyway? Andrew has money. Plenty from what you understand so…that would just be a drop in a bucket, right?)

You slide your fingers over his, intertwining them on your lap and stilling his slow, absent movements. He glances at you immediately, probably to understand why you stopped him. But the look you give him is enough to answer his question.

His eyes trail your face a fraction too long before looking back to the road, purposefully, the streetlights passing by a little faster.

“We’ll be there in five,” he declares without looking at you.

“Andrew, it’s at least ten minutes away,” you say, with a barely contained smile.

“Five.”

“I’m timing you, you know,” you smirked, pointing at the car clock.

The truck moves through an intersection just as the light turns yellow - once, then again at the next block – while Andrew doesn’t do so much as blink.

“See?” he says, the hint of a smug smile on his face when the car finally parks home.

You check the dashboard clock. Four minutes.

You shake your head, laughing as you both unbuckle your seatbelts. “Show off.”

Of course, you should know better now, he is not a man to stop there. So, when he opens the door for you before you even reach for the handle, and offers his hand, you should see it coming.

He helps you down carefully and for half a breath you think that maybe this time he’s not going to do it. No, you definitely should know better cause the moment your feet hit the ground, his arm slides behind your knees, sweeping you off while the other moves behind your back.

A breathless gasp escapes your mouth. “Andrew!”

(God you are so fucking gone for him. Is this what it would feel like? Crossing a threshold with him as a young bride? Completely besotted in a white dress? No. Not would. Will.)

He shuts the door with his hip, adjusting you against his chest as your arms loop around his neck automatically, your body relishing his touch as the thought slips out before you can stop it: “I feel like your bride right now.”

His steps slow on his way to the door, just enough for you to notice and wonder if you should just tell him to brush off your stupid words. That you are just drunk (you barely had the time to drink a sip of your cocktail earlier) and tired (you just spent two nights in a row sleeping like a baby in his arms).

The garage light flickers as he reaches the front door. “You are.”

He carries you inside like he’s done it in a million other lifetimes while you are still gaping, mouth wide open at his words. You shake your head a bit wobbly before moving your hand from the nape of his neck to the place on his cheek where you know a dimple is hiding.

“Careful,” you murmur, smiling softly. “Keep talking like that and I might start looking for a dress rea-”

Your words are being cut off by his mouth, kissing you like he is trying to drown in the sensation, tilting his head to fit you better, to take more of you, and you can’t stop the moan passing your lips. It feels like stepping into the fire and realizing you don’t ever want to be pulled out.

Your feet carefully find back the ground as his hands slide along your backbone, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades. His lips part yours with the same confidence he has when he catches you at the skatepark. You feel him everywhere and you still want more.

(Is it ever going to stop? This feeling? This whole tremor that dances under your skin every time he touches you? Every time he kisses you like he means forever?)

He pulls away just enough, heavy breath mingling with yours, hazel eyes half-lidded in pleasure and his nose brushing yours softly with your foreheads pressed together, “We can just kiss. If that’s what you want. I don’t need more. Just you,” he murmured in a broken voice.

The words settle deep in your chest, heavy and large as if they have roots. It makes you want to answer him with your mouth, to kiss him until his doubts leave his bones entirely. You bring your fingers to the bow of his lips and he kisses them gently, one after the other, the softness of it making you tremble.

“Andrew,” you say quietly, smiling despite your racing pulse. “Take me to bed.”

He regards you for a long moment, his eyes moving slowly over your face as though he is searching for hesitation and when he finds none, a smile begins at the corner of his mouth, enough to carve that rare, gorgeous dimple into his cheek. “Bossy,” he smirks before lifting you back by the waist so your legs can wrap up around his waist, walking around the house guided only by his memory since his lips are too busy coaxing moans out of you.

You are almost blacking out from the lack of oxygen when the kiss suddenly breaks. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, you distinguish most of his expression: lustful and bewildered that this is finally happening.

“I want to taste you. Please,” he breaths and you nod, not trusting yourself to reply.

The look that passes through his hazel eyes is hazy, fingers finding the hem of your dress and carefully pulling it up.

“Don’t want to mess it,” he says, folding it neatly on his chair. “You look pretty in that.”

You sit on the edge of the bed, trying not to feel too self-conscious about being only in your underwear, braless as he kneels down to the floor, still fully clothed and face a few inches lower than yours, prying your legs apart.

“Andrew,”

He doesn’t respond, pressing his lips to the inner corner of your thigh and moving further up between your legs.

“You don’t have to Andrew.”

He only lifts his gaze up to yours, unwavering as he continues his kisses, “You don’t want it?”

“I…I’m not saying that. I just…I don’t want you to feel obligated to it. I know it’s not…what men like the most,” you gasp, your hand finding his curls and twisting them around your fingers, making him grunt.

“It’s what I want to do the most, right now,” he says with a sinful gaze. “Can I?”

“Yes. Okay. Sure,” you choke, closing your eyes and lying down as he continues his torturous path, his hands slowly tugging the last piece between him and your pussy.

You don’t think you have ever been this wet with a man. Or a woman. Or anyone at all. Normally, you feel a bit uncomfortable with men going down on you cause they never seem to know what they are doing or are too impatient of having ‘real sex’ to let you finish. But here with Andrew, you are nothing but pleasure, his lips fiddling with you like you are an instrument that he is tuning to his own harmony.

You gasp as his tongue finally probes your folds stopping just underneath your clit, earning from him a low whimper.

“You taste delicious,” he goes, coming up for air by an inch. “Just like how I dreamt,” he adds, making you feel close to delirious.

He lowers his face again, tongue working its way up your pussy again, finally reaching for your clit and rolling over it, making you shudder and writhe on the bed, incapable of keeping your moans down and your hands running through his scalp.

“Andrew, please. Just like that. It’s perfect,” you praise him, feeling how it makes him pick up the pace.

Your last straw is the sight of his face between your legs, eyes burning with nothing but want, his hands used to stealing and hurting now holding onto your legs to keep them open and making you come with a hoarse cry. If there’s a heaven on Earth, you know now that it must only exist in this man. In his hands, his chest, his mouth, his eyes. He is nothing but your sanctuary, your promised land and your altar.

When your orgasm subsides, you feel Andrew crawling over you and pressing his lips against you, making you taste yourself on his mouth as you slip your tongue in it. The small noise of pleasure from the back of his throat is the most delicious sound you’ve ever heard.

“You,” you breathe against him, your lips brushing his, pupils probably wide. “I want you. Like right now. So please…take off those clothes. I love them. Really. But take them off.”

His lips twitches again to the side, “Anything.” as he starts to undress, folding them before going above you, his hard cock pressing against your heat.

His eyes keep searching your face, looking for an ounce of backtrack in your eyes before slowly entering you. That’s when you realize how grateful you are for the previous climax because in any other situation, you would have probably wince at his thickness. Thankfully, he seems to catch on with it - probably due to his gaze not leaving your face and refusing to blink – and takes his time to be fully inside you.

For a couple of minutes, the two of you don’t move, give you the time to marvel at how good he feels inside of you. You know now that you’ll have other days and nights to ask him to stay like this for hours, just to be one.

Andrew presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing yours as he whispers. “I love you.”

The word hums through your body. Love. Love. Love. Andrew loves someone and it’s you. From your scalp to your toes, you can feel it resonating through you. Love. Love. Love.

“I love you, Andrew. My Andrew,” you murmur happily, moving a drenched curl from his forehead. “So good to me.”

His face ends up in your neck, trying to cover his reaction to your words. “You really think I’m good?”

“Of course you are. Look at me, honey,” you say, holding onto his chin to bring back his face close to yours as your legs wrap around his waist. “You are good. You are kind. You keep making me feel safe. And…I’m so lucky to have you,” you add, rolling your hips and making him shiver.

You drink in the sight of him: his sweaty hair sticking to his head, curls messy from where your fingers had run through, the freckles dusting his chest and the traces of old wounds that you’ll ask about one day. But the most important of all is the way he is looking at you – as if he loves you. Because he does. He said it. I love you. I love you. I love you.

You keep whispering sweet nothings into his ear, just to see the flush spreading on his cheeks, his ears, his chest and encouraging his thrusts to go harder, deeper. Soon enough, you are quivering around him, your nails digging in his skin as you bite on his lower lip in retaliation for making you wait so long for this moment.

He lets out a desperate moan. “I won’t…last long. ‘m sorry. You feel so…”

“It’s okay,” you encourage him. “I want you to come.”

He slams his cock one more time and goes. “Wh-Where?”

“In me,” you beg, and you know you have hit the right nerve from the way his whole body trembles.

“Really?” he breathes.

“Please.”

The sight of his body, eyes fighting to not shut tight from the pleasure, mouth pursuing yours, mixed with how good he is making you feel, is too much. Your back arches as you reach your second climax tonight, quickly followed by Andrew, clinging to you as his warm load fills you up. Both of you are gasping for one another, time almost freezing as your eyes are sharing the same thought. I love you. I love you. I love you.

After a couple of minutes, Andrew slips out of you and lays most of his body against your side, putting his head above your breasts, on your heartbeat, intertwining your hands together.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

You brush a kiss on top of his head. “What?”

He pays rent two days early, every month, without fail. He wipes down the counter after he cooks, because apparently, in Jack’s mind, you could be an M3 and have the time to cook (Oh, fuck off, is your main and consistent thought every time he sets a plate of actual food in front of you at breakfast and dinner). He rewinds the VHS before returning it, and he even agrees to 4am study sessions when you are doubting yourself with the tracheobronchial tree structure.

The only problem with Jack Abbot is…he does not bend. For anyone.

It’s a mistake people make about him at the hospital. They assume that because he listens more than he talks and doesn’t talk the loudest in the room, he must be easygoing. They’re all wrong because in ‘easygoing’, there’s the word easy. And Jack is many things – observant, funny, annoyingly competent - but easy is not one of them. Right now, for instance, he’s being impossible.

Sprawled at the dining table, legs stretched out, hair still damp from the shower and curling at the nape of his neck and a gray shirt clinging enough to make you look away, Jack is in the middle of Sabiston Textbook of Surgery, annotating it.

You pause in the doorway for a second, watching him read before clearing your throat.

“Jack.”

He doesn’t even look up. “No.”

“I haven’t said anything yet!”

“Don’t need to,” he replies, flipping a page. “If it’s prefaced with my name in that tone, the answer is no.”

You step closer and place your hand flat over the open page of Sabiston, earning a mildly annoyed look from him.

“I just need a small, tiny favor.”

“No.”

“Please at least listen to me!” you implore.

One corner of his mouth lifts, and there it is, that smirk that you want to either punch or kiss “You want to switch our trauma shifts tomorrow.”

You hesitate just long enough for him to catch him, his eyebrow lifting slowly. “Why do you need it?”

“I…” you exhale, a little embarrassed. “I haven’t completed my procedure log. I’m missing one intubation and I really need it to pass the rotation.”

“One intubation,” he repeats, a little judgy, closing the book with his pen marking the page. “Haven’t you been on three different procedures already?”

“I know,” you snap, heat creeping up your neck. “I know. But Meyers took the first one because he is an asshole who can’t stop himself from playing mister Know-it-all, the second one went to Patel because he hadn’t logged one either, and the third…”

“You froze.”

I hate you for remembering this, I hate that you noticed, I hate how right you are, you thought.

“It was just…one second.”

“In trauma,” he replies, leaning back in the chair and hands folding behind his head, “one second is the difference between life and death.”

You glare at him. “Jack…I am missing one intubation. Just one. If I don’t log it, Reyes will tank my evaluation, and I’m not repeating this rotation, I physically cannot handle doing another six weeks of this while pretending I don’t care when he calls me ‘sweetheart’ in front of the interns like I’m a pretty accessory instead of a med student. So yes. I want your trauma shift cause I need it. You can’t even fathom the depth of my despair right now.”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty vivid imagination,” he replies.

“I’ll do the dishes for a month.”

He snorts.

“I’m serious!”

“You can’t be trusted with my plates.”

“I will pay for your coffee for a month,” you add quickly, stepping forward and leaning into his space.

He keeps shaking his head, so, in a moment of pure madness, and lacking better ideas, you just say: “I’ll go down on you.”

That gets his attention. “You…You’re not going to go down on me.”

“I’m sorry, which part of ‘despair’ don’t you understand with your so-called vivid imagination?”

He frowns, with that tiny crease between his brows that you want to kiss as much as his smirk, his throat moving as he swallows. “You’d actually…do that?” he asks carefully.

You hadn’t expected that answer and for a moment, the weight of what you just offered settles in. The apartment suddenly feels too quiet, and you become acutely aware of the fact that you are standing very close to Jack, that his hair is still damp and you want to run your hands through those curls, and the way the lamplight catches in his hazel eyes and turns them warmer, almost golden.

The fact is…you like Jack. You’ve liked him for the past few months, and quite frankly, being his roommate has not helped with your massive crush problem.

You shrug, forcing your voice into something light and easy. “Yeah. I’m okay with it. If you are, I mean.”

His fingers flex against the edge of Sabiston, not looking away from you and saying quietly. “So, um…we do this and you get my shift?”

“A privilege for another,” you clarify, voice steady even if your pulse is sabotaging you. “You help me log the intubation and I… return the generosity.”

He nods once, and to your quiet, personal satisfaction, a faint blush creeps across his freckled cheeks, like a tell he can’t suppress. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he says again, quieter.

You reach for the back of his chair, gently turning him toward you, your faces now inches to each other. “How about now Jack? Or are you too busy studying…let me guess: the saphenous vein?” you murmur, with a teasing smile.

“It was the VSD actually,” he breathes, his gaze dropping briefly to your mouth before snapping back up. “But…yeah. Now is fine.”

You drop to your knees, his knees parting quickly, confirming your personal theory: it has been a long time for him. Probably as long as it’s been for you. Third year is not exactly fertile ground to start having relationships: no time, no personal life, no sleep and not to mention that you have never seen him bring anyone back here. Not once. He’s never acted on any nurses’ or classmates’ flirtations. The apartment has always been just the two of you.

You hook your fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling it down as he lifts his hips. “I’m not entirely sure that I haven’t passed out on the table and this is all just a hallucination,” he continues, a groan escaping his mouth when you let your palm graze over his half hard cock, eyelids shutting completely the moment you wrap your hand properly around him.

“I don’t know…” you joke as you start moving, enjoying the view of Mr. Perfect Grades keeping his hands diligently on his legs and pressing his teeth on his lips. “You look very awake to me.”

You wet your lips lightly, running your tongue over them as his gaze finds yours. You’ve always loved that part: the control, deciding when and how it happens, to go slower or faster, feeling someone react under your hands and mouth, but still…you’re a little nervous. It’s been a while and you hope you haven’t lost it in…oh my god a year ago now? Yeah, it was definitely a year.

Either way, you don’t give yourself more time to think about it before dipping your head to take him in.

Multiple things come up to your mind: first, he’s not the kind of guy to put his hands on your hair to get you to move faster or deeper – which you appreciate - second, he’s vocal, muttering your name and profanities each time you manage to fit him entirely in your mouth - you still don’t know how you do that, the guy is huge - and third, you are officially on your knees, blowing your roommate, crush and student rival.

Once he’s done, you stand back up, knees numb and wiping the back of your hand over your lips, both struggling to catch your breaths.

“6am. For tomorrow. But get there at 5.30,” Jack says, closing his eyes briefly before putting his pants back on. “And you better do this intubation.”

──────────

Two weeks later, he’s the one standing in the living room.

“Hey.”

You don’t look up from your notes. “No.”

He exhales sharply through his nose, dropping onto the couch beside you. “Please.”

“No,” you repeat, turning a page calmly even though the corner of your mouth is threatening to betray you. There’s something so satisfying about denying Jack Abbot anything.

He drags a hand through his hair, mussed from the shift at the hospital, and puts his hand on yours (don’t freeze over that, it’s stupid anyway). “It’s just one procedure.”

You raise an eyebrow, finally looking at him. “Doctor Abbot missing something on his log?”

“No,” he starts before hesitating, his pride wrestling with the request, “it’s about the thoracostomy. Reyes is letting one M3 take lead tomorrow and I need someone to cover triage so I can stay in trauma long enough to be picked.”

You let your gaze drag slowly over him, pretending to think. “No.”

“You’re enjoying this,” he sighed, his hand still clasps around yours.

“Oh, immensely.”

“Please. I’ll make it up to you.”

You snort softly and close your notebook, setting it aside before turning fully toward him, your knees brushing his. “How, doc?”

“I’ll go down on you.”

“What?” you ask slowly.

He shrugs, trying for casual, one hand still loosely wrapped around yours, his thumb brushing absently over your knuckles. “One privilege for another. That’s…that’s our thing, right?”

“Um…yeah. You really want to do this thoracostomy?”

His lips pull into that maddening kissable half-smile that you love more than anything, the one he gets in the ER whenever he answers correctly to one of the residents’ questions. “I really want to do it and erase Meyers’ smile once and for all. So, what do you say?”

“Okay,” you reply, parting your legs (oh yes, Jack, you’re gonna have to kneel for this one, no way I’m passing on an occasion to let you do everything) “but be quick, I still have to read the biological markers of…”

The words don’t get out of your mouth when he kneels in front of you, pulling off your pajama short and underwear, the leather of the couch making you feel hotter than you were already.

“I’ll be very quick and thorough, I promise,” he replies, amused – probably because you were now completely silent – before working his tongue on you.

And wow, you have received plenty of good cunnilinguses in your life, even if it’s been some time, but this one…is miles from the rest. You can recognize it happily… Jack has some wicked knowledge of the human anatomy and how to get you there in a few minutes.

“You better be fucking great for this thoracostomy, Doctor Abbot,” you say as you’re try to catch your breath, Jack picking up your notes, ready for a new study session (you don’t comment over the fact that he doesn’t go rinse his mouth or put distance between you and just…drags his thumb across his lower lip and then licks it clean).

“You know me,” he replies with a smug smile that makes you roll your eyes.

And yes, you know. The next day proves it. You’re buried in triage when you hear from your resident, the Doctor Robinavitch – a young, tall man, barely a few years older than you who keeps trying his best to be half your friend, half your boss – that Jack had been an example of calm and solid, earning a fist bump from both Reyes and Robinavitch.

You nod slowly, pretending you don’t feel the faint flare of something warm under your ribs, travelling down your body. Pride. You are so proud of him, and you want to reply to the resident, of course he was solid, of course he didn’t choke, this man is great and kind and…actually is also a great giver, but you don’t need to know that.

You catch sight of him later in the hallway, walking toward you with a protein bar in hand, a little smile on his face. And that smile, Jesus, all warm and bright and unguarded…it’s definitely a second privilege he doesn’t need to know about.

──────────

Four days after, you get behind on your charting.

Because you’d rather slit your wrist than stay late in the ER with Reyes breathing into the back of your skull, you make another deal with Jack.

“If you stay up with me until it’s done,” you murmur to Jack in the CT-Scan room, “I’ll give you a very nice orgasm.”

He checks to his left and right. “Define ‘very nice’”.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Hey, I’m the guy who’s gonna stay to help you, so be a little more grateful.”

You salute him with your pen. “Aye aye doc.”

Late that night, steam fogs the bathroom mirror, the water running hot. He’s already under the spray when you step into the doorway, taking off your clothes (after all there’s almost nothing he hasn’t seen already). You step closer before putting your hand on him, his palms ending up on the tiled wall behind you and muttering a “Jesus fucking Christ.” at the combined feeling of the water cascading on his body and your movements who only grows faster, making him come in a few minutes, your name on his lips.

“You know…it’s stupid to waste the water,” he murmurs after a while.

“Oh, really.”

“I mean, we’re two broke med students, it’s cost-effective. And we’re already in here anyway.”

Surely you can’t disagree with this idea.

Efficiency, after all, is very important in medicine.

──────────

“Hey kid.”

You look up, the Doctor Robinavitch standing there with that expression – the one who wants to gossip but tries to refrain himself from it.

“Um,” you say cautiously, pen lingering over the chart. “What?”

He glances down the hall then back at you. You follow his gaze automatically.

Jack is at the nurses’ board, talking to one of them, arms crossed and sleeves rolled up. He laughs at something, shaking his head. You look away, glancing back at the resident, who’s already staring at you, leaning over the table just enough to meet your eye level.

“…What?” you repeat, sharper now.

“How long?”

You blink. “How long what?”

“Whatever that is,” he replies, gesturing vaguely between you and the air.

You scoff lightly, going back to writing your charting. “There is no ‘that’, Doctor Robinavitch.”

He sighs deeply, rubbing a hand down his face. “Listen kid, you realize the entire staff has a betting pool, right?”

Your pen freezes mid-word. “On what?”

He just stares at you until you break (my god how you hate when he does that, condolences to all the future doctors who’ll get him as an attending).

“We’re not together. It’s…it’s not like that,” you try to explain weakly instead of saying we’re just roommates who are the type to perform oral sex to get what we want, no big deal there. oh, and now we take showers together every night to save the planet, not to…give the other a freebie.

His smile widens. “Oh, so there is a ‘that’.”

You look back at the nurses’ station. Jack is still there, but now he’s looking directly at you, an eyebrow raised with a small, knowing smile – like he can feel that your mind is turned to this morning and the two orgasms he gave you before going to work.

You can’t help but smile back at him.

Robinavitch follows the silent exchange, then looks back at you with open disbelief. “That,” he says slowly, “right there, is definitely a thing.”

Before you can gather your words to get a more convincing denial, a monitor alarms from down the hall.

“Go, kid. And try not to share lovey-dovey looks over the patient.”

You shove his shoulder as you pass him, heat rising in your cheeks.

“I hate you, Robinavitch.”

“I know that’s not true!” he calls after you.

Annoyingly…he’s right. You don’t hate him.

And there is a thing.

──────────

It happens after the code blue.

You and Jack are walking home in silence, refusing to mention how, when you had stepped into the patient’s room, he had handed you the laryngoscope without hesitation – you, not himself – like there has been no other option in his mind.

Your hands brush every few steps, neither of you pulling away.

By the time you reach the apartment, your body feels heavy, exhausted, dumping your bag on the hallway floor and ripping of your jacket as you go straight to the bathroom.

The light is too bright. It exposes everything: the smudged mascara under your eyes, the dark circles who can’t be hidden well by the foundation, the way your eyes are reddened by your need to cry.

You grip the edge of the sink and stare at yourself, murmuring “You did well, don’t worry. The woman is alive. The baby is alive. You did well.”

The door opens quietly behind you.

“If you’re about to tell me I did great, don’t.” you mutter, voice flat, refusing to meet his eyes in the mirror. If you look at him, you might crack.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, you feel him step into your space, listening to him opening the cabinet and the rustle of cotton pads. He reaches around you, close enough that his arm brushes you before gently turning you by the shoulder so you’re facing him instead of your – miserable, pathetic – reflection.

“Hold still,” he murmurs.

His face is close to yours – barely four inches away. Close enough that you can see the freckles across his nose. Enough that you could close that distance with the smallest tilt forward and drown your thoughts in something easier than this ache sitting in your chest.

The cotton pad is cool against your skin. He wipes slowly beneath your eye, careful, his thumb steadying your jaw. “Can you do me a favor?” he asks quietly.

“I’m not in the mood tonight,” you reply automatically.

He rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat in it. “No, not like that. Not…” he exhales, dragging the pad gently across your cheek, “not everything is about having sex.”

“I wouldn’t call exactly what we’re doing ‘having sex’,” you say, sharper than you intend.

He stills and for a fraction of a second, something flickers across his face in between surprise and hurt. “Oh. Um…Okay.”

His throat bobs as he switches to a clean pad, focusing on your eyes.

Eyes closed, you try to explain yourself better, words coming out before you can filter them. “That’s not what I meant,” you murmur. “I just…I don’t want this tonight and I don’t want this to be another thing that happens because we almost lost someone. We…we can’t keep doing this.”

Fuck, you don’t even know what this is anymore.

You feel him getting even closer – so close that his breath brushes your lips when he exhales. He finishes wiping up your face. “Can you…” he starts, voice lower now, uncertain like you’ve never heard from him, “can you let me just be here? With you?”

You open your eyes slowly, now seeing everything: the faint traces of tears at the corner of his eyes, the way his curls have fallen messily over his forehead from running his hand through them too much. He looks younger like this.

“I’m sorry Jack. I didn’t mean to make it sound like…like what we do doesn’t matter. I just…” your voice breaks, “I don’t want it to be the only reason we touch.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “It’s not.”

You study him, skeptical.

“Fine,” he admits quietly. “It started that way because we’re two massive idiots who don’t know how to say what we want without turning it into…a mess. But it’s not why I continued doing that.”

He sets the cotton pad down in the sink and brings both hands to your face now, his palms feeling warm against your cheeks.

“I don’t want this to be about that. I…I want to be the person you come home with after something like tonight. Not just the guy you’re giving blowjobs to who turns out to be your roommate.”

“Great blowjobs, you mean. Wonderful. Fantastic,” you reply, trying to smile a little.

“Yes, sure. All of the above and more,” he nods, matching your grin with that crooked, infuriatingly gorgeous one before leaning in slowly, giving you time to pull away if you want to. He waits until you give the smallest eager nod before his mouth brushes yours.

Oh. Oh. Okay. You should have started here weeks ago.

The kiss is nothing like the moments you’ve shared before. It’s unhurried and soft, his lips moving against yours like he’s learning a part of you he doesn’t know.

And God, he’s a good kisser too – good doctor, good giver, does this man know how to be bad at something?

He tilts his head slightly, deepening it and learning to read every small reaction: when you sigh softly against his mouth, he runs his tongue against yours, when your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, he pulls you closer.

Out of breath, he rests his forehead against yours, noses brushing.

“I like you, okay? I like you when you study until four in the morning. I like you when you are right about a diagnosis and high five me. I like you when you’re scared. And stubborn. And exhausted,” he whispers against your mouth. “You’re my person. In the ER, here, everywhere.”

You swallow. “My god, how didn’t you get with, like…all the girls of the hospital?”

“Well, you see, I was a bit busy trying to get the attention of a certain woman,” he replies, chuckling.

“Oh, do I know her?”

“Hm. I’m not sure,” he murmurs, lips still close enough that your breath mingles. “She’s obstinate. Overworks herself and pretends she doesn’t need anyone. Terrible at dishes.”

You pinch his side. “Rude.”

“Oh, and she rolls her eyes when I’m right,” he continues. “Which is very often.”

“Unbelievable.”

“And,” he adds, softer, “she has this look she gives me every time there’s an alarm. Like she’s checking if I’m okay.”

You swallow. “Oh. Her.”

“Yeah.” His mouth curves, his nose brushing yours deliberately. “Her.”

You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you love that.”

You hesitate before nodding. “Yeah,” you admit. “I do love that.” I love you, I love you, I love you.

“Yeah?” he asks, a smile spreading across his face as his hand slides to the small of your back. “Good.”

You don’t give him time to get smug about it before kissing him again, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt and pulling him closer until there’s no space left between you. His breath catches against your mouth, a surprised sound that makes you press him against the bathroom’s door.

Against his lips, still holding onto his shirt, you murmur, “Shower?”

You wake up before the alarm goes off.

For a moment, you lie there, blinking up at the dark ceiling, trying to figure out why your body dragged you out of sleep. Then you feel it as you shift—that awful, unmistakable sticky warmth beneath you. The sensation only gets worse as you shift again, growing cold now where air hits it.

Fuck.

You push yourself upright slowly, trying not to move too much, but the damage is already done. You don't even have to look to know what you'll see.

You glance over at Jack, who is, thankfully, still asleep beside you. He has one arm tucked under his pillow, the other nestled on your hip. It slowly falls to the bed as you get up. He makes a sound at the loss of your warmth, but his breathing stays slow and even.

You slowly stand, mind racing as you stare at the bed. Maybe it's not that bad—but the second you lift the blanket, the dark stain laughs you right in the face. It's not huge, but it's still very noticeable.

It's fucking embarrassing. Your throat tightens. "God, I'm so stupid," you mutter under your breath, voice shaky. "I should've set an alarm… Should've—Fuck!" You should've known better. Should've never fallen asleep on his chest yesterday, only to be awoken gently, so you could brush your teeth. And in that soft space, with eyes blearily blinking, you'd forgotten that the second day always hit you with a vengeance.

And here's the evidence of your stupidity.

Panic buzzes through your body as you start pulling at the sheets. You need to get them off before Jack wakes up. You pull at the corner in an anxious haze, not once stopping to consider how you'll succeed with him still sleeping on them.

You just know you need to throw them in the wash before he sees how disgusting you are.

The mattress shifts, and Jack inhales sharply. His eyes blink open, and before you can even react, he's pushing himself up. He takes a glance at your panic-stricken face and immediately jumps into action, hand reaching for his prosthetic. He grabs it with practised ease, movements quick even while half-awake.

"What's wrong?" he asks, his voice still tinged rough with sleep. He stands up, crossing the space between you.

You step back, hands still tugging at the sheets. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to," you blurt immediately, tugging harder. "I should've known better—" The fitted corner flies free.

"Hey—hey, slow down," Jack says, reaching out to try and grab the bedding from your hands. You jerk away instinctively, avoiding his gaze. The sheets slide across the mattress, and for a split second, the stain is completely visible. There's no question whether Jack saw. You know he did.

"I'll clean it," you rush out, voice cracking in humiliation. "Or buy new sheets. I know it's disgusting—I'll just get you new ones." You keep pulling at it like if you move fast enough, the moment will disappear, and you can forget it ever happened.

Jack doesn't say anything, he just… stops. He watches you for a second, brows knitting together. He approaches you slowly, trying to make sure you won't move away again.

"I don't care about the sheets, sweetheart," he says gently. "I care about you crying over it."

Jack steps closer, his hands catch the edge of the sheet, trying to ease it out of your hands. You grip it tighter, and he lets it fall again. His hands reach for your wrists instead, fingers wrapping around them softly.

"Hey," he murmurs, head tilting towards yours.

You finally stop and look up at him. Your face is crumpled, eyes glassy, embarrassment written all over you.

Jack locks his gaze with yours. "Sweetheart," he says quietly, thumbs brushing lightly over your wrists. "I'm not mad. I couldn't care less about it, in fact. You're not disgusting. This shit happens."

You mull over his words, lip caught in between your teeth. "I'm sorry," you whisper anyway. "I'll get the stain out, I swear!"

Jack exhales softly. "I'll take care of it."

You immediately shake your head. "No—"

"You," he interrupts, nodding towards the bathroom, "are going to take a long, hot shower." He moves his hands from your wrists, carefully extracting the sheets from your grip. "We'll throw your clothes in another load after."

Your hands keep hovering in the air. "But what about the stain?" you protest, though more weakly now than you did at first.

Jack pauses and looks back at you like this might be the most ridiculous concern in the world. "Did you forget I'm an ER doctor?" He lifts the bundle of sheets lightly. "I know how to get blood out of fabric."

Your shoulders finally sag. He's not mad. He doesn't think you're disgusting.

Had you been thinking rationally, you might have told yourself this. That Jack isn't like the men you'd known before.

Jack nods toward the bathroom again, his voice softening. "Go on," he says. "I've got this."

The shower helps, the hot water loosening the tight knot that's been sitting in your chest since you woke up. Steam fills the bathroom, fogging the mirror and curling around your shoulders while you stand under the spray longer than you probably need to.

When you step out, wrapped in a towel, you can hear Jack moving around quietly. Cabinets opening, dishes clinking against the counter, and the low hum of the coffee machine. Your chest tightens again, embarrassment creeping back in as you get dressed.

By the time you make your way into the kitchen, hair still damp and sweater sleeves pulled halfway over your hands, Jack's already sitting at the table with a cup. He looks up immediately at the sound of your footsteps.

There's a plate in front of your usual chair and a steaming mug beside it. He nudges the plate a little closer as you sit.

"Eat," he says simply, no hint of teasing in his voice about earlier. "It's full of iron." His gaze flicks to your face like he wants to say something else, then he thinks better of it.

Your fingers curl around the warm mug automatically. "Thank you," you mutter, staring down at the plate. You still don't understand why he's being so nice to you when you'd just ruined his morning.

The shame is still there, pulsing hot and stubborn under your skin. "I'm—"

Jack points at you immediately with the fork he’s holding. "Don’t say it."

You blink, brows furrowing.

He continues, "You have nothing to be sorry about."

Your mouth opens, anyway. "I—"

"Ah," he chides softly, eyebrows lifting in warning.

You make a small, frustrated hmph in the back of your throat, but shut your mouth. He watches for another second like he's making sure you'll behave, then takes a slurp of his coffee.

The silence that follows isn't awkward like you thought it would be—it's comfortable, the slight crinkle of the newspaper as he turns a page, the clink of a fork against a plate, and the soft slurp of coffee. It's normal.

You're halfway through the plate of food, shame almost dwindled to nothing, when there's a knock at the door.

Jack glances up, like he's been expecting it. "I'll get it."

You hear the door open, muffled voices in the hallway, then the rustle of cardboard. When he comes back into the kitchen, he's carrying two packages, one larger than the other.

"What's that?"

Jack sets them down on the table with a small thump. "Well," he says casually, gesturing toward them, "why don't you open them and see for yourself?"

You eye the boxes suspiciously before reaching for the smaller one first. You stick your knife in, slicing the tape open. Inside is a soft grey heating pad, neatly folded in plastic.

You blink at it, warmth swelling in your chest. "Jack… You shouldn't have."

Jack just shrugs like it was nothing.

You don’t even think about it before you stand up and wrap your arms around him in a tight hug. He stiffens for a second, like the contact surprises him, then his arms come up around you automatically, tightening just a little more than necessary. You press your face into his shoulder, murmuring softly, "Thank you."

The hug lingers longer than it probably needs to, but you're not particularly eager to be the first one to pull away. Jack doesn't seem to mind, his chin resting on the top of your head, as his arms squeeze you tightly. Eventually, you loosen your arms and step back, clearing your throat a little; his hands fall away a bit slower.

"Okay," you say, glancing at the second package, trying to appear calm. "What’s in the other one?"

Jack picks it up, turning it over in his hands. "No idea. That one’s not from me." He sets it down and picks up his mug again.

You rip the tape open again. Inside are several metal pieces and a small bag of bolts. It takes you about three seconds to realise what they are.

Your face lights up. "It's the bed legs!" You pull one of the metal pieces out and hold it up triumphantly. "Finally."

Jack’s fingers stiffen around the mug, his smile fading. He leans his hip against the table instead, crossing his arms loosely. His eyes flick from the metal leg in your hand and then back to you.

"That eager to get away from me already?" he asks lightly. He lifts his coffee and takes a sip like the comment means nothing, gaze settling somewhere near your shoulder instead of your face.

You blink at him, confused, "What, no? That's not—" then realisation hits you, and you grimace. "Oh, shit. I forgot to tell you."

Jack raises an eyebrow.

"Um," you start, words spilling out a little too quickly, "so… Olivia’s coming to town, and I told her she could stay here, but then I realised we don’t actually have a guest bed—" You lift the metal leg slightly, as if it explains everything. "—which we do now. Or… we will. Once this is a bed and not just… parts of a bed."

You glance up at him, hopeful and a little nervous, searching his face. "So, this is good because now she has somewhere to sleep... Right?" You pause. "I mean, if it’s weird, I can tell her to get a hotel. That's totally fine. I just— I already told her she could stay here, so..."

Jack blinks once, then twice, his shoulders relaxing as he processes your spiel. His mouth lifts slightly at the corner. "No, it's fine. She can stay here," he says.

You relax instantly. "Good!" you grin. "Hey," you add, quieter, bumping your shoulder lightly into his arm. "I’m not trying to escape you… Well, maybe besides your snoring."

Jack snorts softly. "I still don't snore. You're such a liar." He leans forward, grabbing your mugs to make more coffee, hip bumping gently into yours as he moves past.

You pull the rest of the pieces out of the box, grinning even wider. "You’ll help me build it, right?"

The days leading up to Olivia's arrival made Jack increasingly nervous. So nervous that Robby caught on and had been teasing him ever since.

Jack doesn't really care. She's your best friend, the most important person in your life, and he has exactly one shot to get on her good side. To show her he's serious about this—that he understands the damage this secret could do to your life if it ever comes out. That he's in this until the bitter end.

He also can't quite kill the small, stubborn hope that she might convince you to start looking at him the way he already looks at you.

Olivia arrives on a Tuesday afternoon after a full day at the conference. She settles in easily, kicking her shoes off, claiming the guest room like she's lived there for months, and is now curled up on the couch beside you like the two of you never spent a day apart.

Introductions had gone smoothly, though he could tell you were nervous for some reason, even if he should be the one sweating over it, not you. But Olivia seemed to like him, and your shoulders had dropped again, especially when she had grinned appreciatively at him when he offered to make dinner as you caught up.

Olivia's conference runs for the next two days, and because you haven't been able to swap shifts with anyone, dinner is the only time the three of you have that overlaps. To your (and Jack's) relief, she's staying until the weekend, in which your days will line up.

Jack knows how much this visit means to you, and he'd checked the schedule to try and figure out something for you, thinking he might be able to move a shift or two around—until two residents called in sick, and there was no one left to spare.

Now, he stands in the kitchen, stirring a pan and trying not to be obvious about staring at you. You’re both laughing at something on your phone—shoulders bumping, heads leaning together, your voices bright and overlapping in that effortless way people only have with old friends.

Olivia is a lot like you. Same easy smile. Same animated way of talking with her hands. Same carefree energy that fills a room without trying. As much as he believes you to be trouble, he can tell she is, too. If not as much, then just in a way that encourages you.

But where you’re open like a book, Olivia feels… sharper.

Jack prides himself on reading people. It’s part of the job. Years in the ER teach you to catch the smallest cues—tension in a jaw, the shift of someone’s breathing, the flicker of pain someone’s trying to hide.

With you, it’s second nature. With Olivia? He’s getting nothing. Or worse, he's getting the uncomfortable sense that she’s the one reading him.

He feels it now as he cooks. Standing at the stove, stirring the pasta sauce, he glances toward the couch again, out of habit—just to check on you. The sound of your laughter pulls a smile onto his face before he even realises it.

But Olivia… Olivia isn't laughing. She's watching him, sharp eyes over the corner of her phone. The kind of look people give when they’ve already figured something out. The moment he notices, she smiles like nothing's happened and turns back to you.

Dinner passes quickly—just casual small talk and getting to know each other. It goes better than he'd hoped for.

As the clock ticks closer to seven, he begins to clear the table. You leave to change, something he'd done earlier, and now he's left alone with Olivia. She grabs the plates and starts rinsing them, ignoring his gesture for her to leave them to him.

"It’s a noble thing you’re doing," she says casually, but Jack feels her gaze on him. "For her," she adds.

He shrugs as he gathers the glasses.

Olivia tilts her head. "No, really," she continues. "Not everyone would agree to something like this."

"Something like what?" He tries to buy himself time, to keep his face from revealing more than it already has.

Olivia gestures lightly as she places a plate into the dishwasher. "This whole arrangement. Pretending to be married. Opening up your house. Letting someone move in just because." Her voice stays light, but Jack knows what she's fishing for. "Most people would’ve run the other direction."

"It was the right thing to do," he says simply, because it's the truth.

Olivia studies him for a moment longer than comfortable, then one eyebrow lifts slightly. "That’s it?"

"That’s it."

She hums softly, like she’s filing the answer away for later, then she washes her hands. "You look at her a lot, you know."

Jack freezes for half a second before recovering. "Do I?"

"Mm." She dries her hands with a dish towel. "You did it like… five times while cooking."

Jack huffs quietly, leaning against the counter. "Habit. Making sure she doesn’t get into trouble. Or something worse."

Olivia grins, her smile is warm now—more playful than investigative. "I’ve known her since middle school. It can’t get worse than when she once microwaved ramen without water."

Jack’s eyebrows lift, the corner of his mouth curling. "That explains a lot."

Olivia laughs softly. "Right?" She sets the towel down, studying him again, but this time it feels less like scrutiny and more like curiosity. "You’re good for her," she says after a moment.

Jack blinks at that. He hadn't expected that.

Olivia shrugs lightly. "She trusts you."

Jack shifts slightly, glancing toward the hallway where you disappeared down minutes ago. "I hope so."

"Oh, she does," Olivia says easily. "Otherwise she wouldn’t be here." She taps the counter behind her thoughtfully. "Still though… fake marriage. That's a big commitment."

Jack sighs quietly. "It's just temporary." He hates being reminded of it.

"Sure." Olivia’s mouth curves slightly.

Footsteps echo down the hallway. Olivia hears it too, straightening. As she passes Jack, she pauses just long enough to pat his shoulder. Leaning down slightly, she murmurs under her breath, "I know what you’re hiding."

Jack stiffens.

She straightens again, smiling brightly. "But don’t worry," she adds lightly. "I’m fun, not cruel. I'll keep it to myself." She glances into his eyes, shrugging. "…For now."

Your voice calls out from the hallway as you appear in the doorway again in scrubs. "Did I miss anything fun?" You glance from Olivia to Jack, trying to ascertain the atmosphere.

Olivia turns toward you immediately, grin widening. "Just telling your husband he passed my friend inspection." She hooks an arm around your shoulders as you walk into the room. You roll your eyes immediately, finding Jack's eyes and sending him a small smile.

His eyes flick briefly to Olivia, but she’s smiling at you like nothing happened. Like she hadn’t just read his deepest secret within a few hours of meeting him.

The for now feels like a ticking bomb he isn't sure how to disable.

Jack takes your things to the locker once you arrive, leaving you at the hub to get ready for the night. You're scanning the board when a shadow falls over you.

Robby smirks as he leans against the counter. "Hey," he says.

"Hi," you reply, eyes narrowing at him. He's looking way too pleased with himself, and you can practically smell the mischief on him.

"So…" he begins. "Didn't peg you for the scandalous type." He grins at you, watching gleefully as you try to school your features into something resembling neutral.

You don't say anything, just stare at him.

"I mean, living together? Sleeping in the same bed? Careful or this—" he leans in, voice lowering to a whisper, "fake marriage might turn into a real one." His grin widens as he watches you struggle to keep a straight face. "Do you have enough condoms, or do you need me to pick some up?"

"Robby," you warn, cheeks flushing. Your hand swats his shoulder, trying to make him stop, but Robby just chuckles loudly.

"Hey, brother," Jack greets as he steps up beside you. He glances from you to Robby, noting his smirk and your stiff jaw and sighs, "Be nice."

"Or what?" Robby counters.

"Or I'll tell that nurse your text last week was meant for someone else," Jack says in response.

Robby freezes. "…Low blow."

"Effective, though."

"…Fine. You two are no fun," Robby says, jerking his chin toward you. "I'll leave your girl alone." He steps back, hoisting his backpack over his shoulder. "See you later, love birds."

"Bye, Robert," you call after him.

He flips you off without turning around.

Jack nudges your shoulder. You glance at him, and the look you share is quick but familiar—checking in, making sure you’re good, before the night swallows you both whole.

Friday doesn't come fast enough. You've trudged through night shifts, waiting for the day that yours and Olivia's schedules finally align. And with Jack out of the house—he'd offered himself—wine night is finally on.

The TV plays some movie you've seen before as you giggle away on the couch, neither of you paying much attention to it. There's a half-empty pizza box sitting on the coffee table, and in your hands are two wine glasses. One bottle is already gone, and the second one is nearly empty.

Conversation flows easily as you jump between topics, the way you can only do with someone who already knows your entire life history.

"No, wait," you say, grinning as you lean forward, wine glass dangling from your fingers. "What about that guy who opened with 'hey beautiful, you look like you have fertile hips'—that has to be the worst one."

Olivia groans loudly, dragging her hands over her face. "Ugh. I forgot about that one..."

You collapse backwards into the couch, laughing. "Oh, or maybe that one you still went on three dates with… uh—what's his name—Matt? Miles?"

"Martin," she supplies. "And he seemed normal!"

"You told me he brought his mother to the restaurant."

She sits up straight. "I didn’t know she was going to be there! And she was nice."

You're nearly wheezing with laughter now.

"Anyway," she says after a moment, wiping under her eye. "Enough about my romantic disasters. I want updates."

"On what?" you say, leaning back.

She gestures broadly around the house, like it's obvious. "This."

You frown. "This what?"

She stares at you like you're dumb. "Jack? The man you're married to? Living here? Sleeping in the same bed? The kiss? I mean, have you kissed him again?"

You immediately shake your head. "No." You take another sip like that, somehow proves your point. "There’s nothing to say. Nothing's happened."

Olivia slowly lowers her wine glass. "…Girl."

You groan. "No, seriously," you say, shaking your head. "He doesn’t see me like that."

"Girl."

"I’m serious!"

"You cannot be serious."

"I am."

She stares at you for a full five seconds before setting her wine glass down dramatically. "You are living in a completely different reality than the rest of us."

You point at yourself. "Me?"

"Yes, you!" She leans forward now. "I can’t count how many times I caught him staring at you these last few days."

You blink. "What?"

"Kitchen, hallway, living room—it doesn't matter where. There was also that time when you were taking off your sweatshirt and he just—" she mimics someone freezing mid-motion "—completely forgot what he was doing."

You shake your head, rolling your eyes. "He did not."

"He absolutely did."

You laugh nervously and take another sip. "He’s just… Jack."

Olivia stares, then bursts out laughing again. "He's just Jack? Wow, that defence's gonna hold up well in court."

"He is!" you repeat, "and we're not in court, so who cares?"

"Girl, you two flirt constantly."

"We do not."

"You absolutely do." She starts counting on her fingers. "The shoulder touches. The little jokes. The way you smile at each other.

Your stomach twists slightly. "Liv, you’re reading into it."

"Am I?"

"Yes!"

"You two are more married than half the couples I work with," she states.

You snort, "Please."

"I’m serious." Olivia scoots closer across the couch, grabbing your hand. Her voice softens just slightly, "I’m not shitting you."

You swallow, bringing the glass up for a sip.

She continues, "That man is so in love with you."

Your heart jumps painfully in your chest, and you choke on the wine. You pull your hand back slowly. "But what if he isn’t?" you say quietly. The room feels a little smaller, walls closing in. "What if I’m just… seeing things because I want to?"

Olivia doesn’t interrupt this time.

"What if I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak?" you add.

She studies you for a moment, then she tilts her head. "Aren’t you already doing that?"

"…What?"

"You’re already in love with him," she says.

You open your mouth. Close it again. You can't argue with that.

She shrugs gently. "So either way, you’re risking it."

The truth of it sits heavily between you. You stare down into your wine glass. She leans back again after a moment, stretching her legs across the couch. "Look," she says casually. "You don’t have to confess your undying love tomorrow."

You swallow, the warmth of the wine doing nothing to calm the sudden flutter in your chest.

"Just… flirt more," she offers.

You make a face. "You just said I already flirt."

"Barely," she grins. "Just lean into it a little more. See what happens."

"And if it goes badly?"

She lifts her glass. "Then we open another bottle of wine, and I help you plan your dramatic move to Spain."

You laugh despite yourself.

"It can’t hurt," she adds with a small shrug.

Your stomach flips. "…Yeah," you murmur. "Maybe not."

You’re still thinking about what Olivia said as you pretend to watch the last of the movie. Unfortunately, your brain keeps replaying the words that man is so in love with you, like it’s trying to decide whether to believe them or not. You swirl the wine in your glass, watching the deep red circle the bowl.

Olivia, meanwhile, has clearly moved on from the emotional portion of the evening. She stretches across the couch, phone in hand. Every few seconds, she snorts.

"What now?" you ask.

She turns the screen toward you. "Look at this man." You squint at the profile. Looking for someone chill who doesn’t take things too seriously and will laugh at my dark humour.

You shrug. "That’s not that bad."

She scrolls down. "His first prompt answer is ‘my most controversial opinion: women shouldn’t vote.’"

You nearly choke on your wine. "Oh my god. I take it back."

"I’m telling you," she says, tossing the phone onto her stomach. "Dating apps are the worst. You should be glad you're off the market."

You laugh, shaking your head, ignoring the latter part of her sentence. Because you're not—not truly. "Well, at least you’re getting anecdotes out of it."

Olivia sighs dramatically and reaches for her purse on the coffee table, rummaging through it for her lip balm. "Oh—wait."

You glance over. "What?"

"I forgot." She pulls a small envelope out from under the pile and waves it. "I won these in a raffle earlier." She opens the envelope and pulls out four glossy tickets. "It’s for that game on Saturday. Baseball or whatever."

"Really?"

"Yep." She fans them out like playing cards.

You think for a second. "I think Jack was talking about watching it."

Olivia’s face lights up immediately. "Well," she says, grinning as she taps the stack of tickets against her palm, "we have just one problem then."

You tilt your head. "What?"

She holds up four fingers. "I have four tickets."

Jack’s key clicks in the lock, and the sound of laughter hits him before he even steps inside. He pauses in the hallway, leaning slightly against the doorframe, just listening for a moment.

Once he moves, he sees you draped across the couch with Olivia, blankets tangled around your legs, empty glasses and bottles on the table. You’re mid-giggle at something Olivia said, your head thrown back, and Jack can’t help the small, involuntary smile tugging at his lips.

He clears his throat softly. You glance up, still smiling, but your gaze is lazy, soft, and somehow magnetic even in your tipsy state. He wants you to look that happy to see him every time he comes home.

"Jack," you sit up, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face, and Jack feels that familiar pull in his chest. He wants to step closer, to be part of this warmth, but he doesn’t. He just watches.

"Looks like you girls have had a good night," he says, nodding at the table.

"The best," you reply, smiling. "Come sit," you pat the cushion next to you, and Jack obliges quicker than he should. He can see Olivia grinning out of the corner of his eye. Sinking into the couch, your thigh brushes his as you lean back against the cushion. You don’t move your leg away. Neither does he.

"How was your night? 'Robby treat you well?" you ask.

"Plenty of beers and burgers. I can't complain."

"Good," you say, leaning onto his shoulder without thinking. Your cheek presses against him as you tell him about your evening—how you'd ended up watching some terrible horror movie. You try to tell him the plot, but you and Olivia are barely comprehensible through your giggles. Jack doesn't really care about the story; he’s too busy memorising the weight of your head on his shoulder, content with watching you being happy. It's what you deserve after these past weeks of trials—hell, after being doomed to stay in this marriage.

Your giggles eventually die down, and Olivia yawns loudly. "I’m going to bed," she announces, sliding off the couch and glancing at you, something incomprehensible glinting in her eyes. You seem to understand it, though, as you sit up straight again.

"Bedtime?" Jack asks, glancing over at you. He reaches over to brush a strand of hair off your shoulder before he seems to realise he did it.

You sigh, eyes closing briefly. "Yeah, I should probably go to bed, too. Can I use the bathroom first?"

Jack nods and watches as you disappear off into the hallway, listening for the bedroom door opening. The sound of running water reaches him shortly after, the faint clatter of bottles and brushes, and he leans back, trying not to overthink the way his heart is drumming. He follows you into the bedroom a moment later.

He's on the edge of the bed, scrolling through his phone, though nothing's really exciting on it, as he waits for you. You emerge a few minutes later, wrapped in a soft, oversized t-shirt, bare legs peeking out. You saunter back toward him, but instead of getting into bed with him like usual, you head for the door again.

"I'm gonna sleep with Liv," you murmur. "Feel free to do your best Patrick impression."

"Patrick?"

"Starfish," you say like it's obvious, giggling.

Jack swallows, forcing a smile and nod. "Oh… yeah," he says, voice steady, though a flicker of disappointment flits across his features for a brief second. He tells himself it’s fine—he’s fine.

He always knew this part wouldn’t last forever. He just wasn't expecting it to hurt like this. He stays on the bed, staring at the door as if it might open again.

Seconds later, the door does creak open again, and there you are, sheepish and hesitant this time, eyes darting toward him. "Okay…" you say quietly, voice small. "…Olivia won’t let me in."

Jack can’t help the smile that curls at the corner of his lips. Relief and amusement swirl together. He watches you step in, shrugging helplessly, and internally, he blesses Olivia for intervening.

He gets up, leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom, arms crossed loosely, letting himself enjoy the moment. "Didn't take you long to come crawling back."

"Careful. I can still sleep on the couch," you counter, smiling at him, and you both know it's an empty threat. Especially, as you slide into bed, on your side, ducking under the covers.

"Uh-huh," Jack grins back.

Robby ends up being the lucky recipient of the fourth ticket. He’s practically vibrating with excitement when the four of you arrive at the stadium, weaving through the thick crowd of fans in jerseys and caps.

"Man, I can’t believe you actually won these," he says for what must be the fifth time, looking around like the place might vanish if he blinks too long. Olivia beams at him.

You climb the stairs toward your section, the roar of the stadium swelling louder with every step. The sun is warm, the sky perfectly clear, and the air smells like popcorn, hot dogs, and grass. Jack keeps glancing back over his shoulder as you climb, slowing just enough each time to make sure you’re still right behind him. Eventually, you press your fingers lightly against the back of his shirt so he’ll stop worrying and just keep walking.

When you reach your row, Robby slides in first, squeezing past the seats with practised ease. Jack follows, pausing long enough to hold the seat backs out of your way as you slip in behind him. Olivia brings up the rear, grinning at you when Jack looks back once more to make sure you made it through.

She’s decked out head to toe in baseball gear—team cap, oversized jersey, even eye black smudged under her eyes. She has absolutely no idea what’s going on, but she's more than happy to play the part.

You, on the other hand, are wearing one of Jack’s old baseball shirts. It’s a little big on you, the sleeves falling just past your elbows, the faded team logo soft from years of washing. Jack had dug it out that morning. "For luck," he said.

It smells faintly like his laundry detergent. It makes you feel things you really shouldn't.

Jack settles back in his seat beside you. A moment later, his arm lifts casually and rests along the back of your seat. Not quite around you. But close enough that if you leaned back even a little—

Olivia notices immediately. She glances from his arm to your face, then sends you a slow, knowing smile. You pointedly ignore her.

Jack leans slightly closer instead, voice lowering near your ear so he doesn’t have to shout over the crowd. "Okay," he says quietly. "So basically—" He gestures toward the field. "That guy’s the starting pitcher. If he does well tonight, it probably decides the series."

You nod like you understand. "What’s the series?"

Jack chuckles softly. "Long story." He starts explaining anyway, pointing out players, rules, and little moments happening on the field. His voice is calm and patient, the kind of tone someone uses when they’re excited to share something they love with someone they lo—

You find yourself listening more to him than the game. Heart fluttering when he reaches over to tuck the edge of your jacket closer around you when the wind picks up.

At the end of an inning, as Jack tells you, you get up. "I’m gonna go to the bathroom," you say.

Jack straightens beside you immediately. "I’ll come with you," he says, already pushing himself to his feet. "I could use something to drink anyway."

He leans forward, glancing past you toward Olivia and Robby. "You guys want anything?"

They don’t even hesitate. "A beer, please," they say in perfect chorus.

Jack chuckles, "Of course."

You step into the crowded concourse, the noise swelling again as people stream past. Someone brushes past you, and Jack’s hand briefly finds the small of your back, guiding you out of the way.

"How much money do you think it’d cost to bat once?" you ask as you walk.

"More than it’s worth," Jack says, falling into step beside you. "You actually have to hit the ball."

You lean toward him, nudging his shoulder. "Hey! You don’t know if I’m good."

He just levels you with a look, brow raised, "I had to explain the rules. That’s enough to know you’ll probably… miss."

You huff, "That proves nothing."

His hand lingers on your back for a second longer than necessary before he lets it fall away.

"Okay... Just so you know," you say quietly after a moment, tugging the edge of your jacket closer around you. "I still have absolutely no idea what’s happening in that game."

Jack grins. "I figured." A group of fans pushes past, and he shifts slightly closer again so they don’t bump into you.

"You did not," you say.

He laughs, "You clapped when someone stretched."

"It was a... a good stretch," you grin back.

Olivia and Robby are quiet for a moment after you and Jack head off, the crowd singing loudly around them. Then Olivia leans forward slightly in her seat, elbows on her knees, as she tilts her head toward Robby. "Do you see what I see?"

Robby doesn’t look confused, and a slow grin spreads across his face. "Two lovesick fools?"

Olivia points at him approvingly. "Good." She settles back into her seat again, crossing one leg over the other. "I’m doing my part," she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "You better be doing yours."

Robby snorts softly. "Oh, trust me, I am trying." He drags a hand through his hair. "It’s not easy."

Olivia glances sideways at him. "Tell me about it."

"We’re in the same boat then," Robby says. "You’d think two supposedly intelligent adults could figure this out."

Olivia gestures dramatically toward the empty seats beside them. "It’s so obvious."

"Love really makes you blind," he says with a small shrug.

"What makes who blind?"

Both of them jump slightly. You and Jack are suddenly standing beside the row again, squeezing past people to get back to your seat.

Olivia’s expression resets instantly. "Oh!" She waves a hand vaguely. "Robby was just telling me a work story."

Robby nods immediately, jumping in. "Yeah—uh, just a case we had the other day."

You settle halfway down, pausing to look at him past Jack. "What kind of case?"

Robby grimaces dramatically. "Someone thought rinsing their eyes with… cleaning solution… was a good idea."

Your face contorts in horror. "Oh—yikes."

"Yeah," Robby says quickly. "Not recommended."

Jack hands the beers over to them. "Two for the peanut gallery."

"Bless you," Robby says, taking the out that Jack probably doesn't know he's given him.

Olivia takes hers with a grin. "Your service is appreciated."

Jack places a drink in your cup holder before setting his own drink down. Without really thinking about it, his arm drapes back along the seat behind you again.

Olivia watches the motion with quiet satisfaction, then she takes a slow sip of her beer and turns back toward the field. Robby grins into his cup. The game resumes, and the two of them share a very small, very smug look over your heads.

You enjoy baseball much more than you'd imagined, though you probably have Jack to thank for that. His commentary plays a huge part in your enjoyment, though you're not sure you could explain anything about the game after—you're more focused on the way his breath brushes against your ear, how his gravelly voice somehow turns gruffer as the game goes on, and how it all pools in a low heat in your belly.

"Kiss cam’s coming up," Olivia whispers suddenly, leaning toward your other ear while Jack and Robby are deep in some very serious baseball discussion beside you.

"And why," you murmur back, not looking away from the field, "are you telling me this?"

Olivia’s grin is audible in her voice. "Just so you’re prepared."

You snort quietly. "There are thousands of people here. We’re not gonna get picked."

The giant screen above the stadium lights up as the music changes. The camera sweeps across the crowd as cheers ripple through the stands.

An older couple appears on the screen first—grey-haired and giggling as they lean in for a quick peck. The crowd applauds. Next, a younger pair who dramatically overdo it, laughing halfway through their kiss while the stadium roars. Then a pair of teenagers who look mortified as the camera lands on them. The boy kisses the girl’s cheek, and she hides her face while the crowd awws.

You’re smiling as you watch. The camera keeps moving and suddenly—it stops.

Your face appears on the massive screen. Right next to Jack’s. For a full second, you just stare. Your brain refuses to process what you’re seeing. The stadium erupts in cheers, egging you on.

"Oh my god," Olivia breathes beside you.

You’re still staring up at the screen in disbelief when Olivia nudges your shoulder sharply. Instinct kicks in. You turn toward Jack. He’s already looking at you.

For a split second, neither of you moves. The noise of the stadium fades behind the awareness of how close you’re sitting—his knee pressed lightly against yours, the familiar warmth of his shoulder against your arm, how he's close enough that you can feel his breath when he exhales. Your pulse thunders in your ears.

What if someone from the hospital is here? What if someone sees? You have to do it.

His eyes flick briefly to the giant screen and back to you. The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s about to laugh. He gives you a quick shrug.

So you lean in, intending for the kiss to be swift and chaste. Just enough to satisfy the camera and keep your covers. But the moment you get close, Jack’s hand comes up. His fingers slide gently along your jaw, cradling the side of your face, and your plan evaporates into thin air.

The kiss lands soft, warmer than you expected, and suddenly you’re leaning into it instead of pulling away, a quiet sigh escaping you before you can stop it. Your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him closer without thinking.

Jack’s lips are warm, tasting faintly of beer, slightly chapped from the sun and the dry stadium air, but still soft. He shifts closer, the heat of his body pressing into yours, and for a moment, the noise of the crowd feels miles away. All you can feel is him.

For a full second, it feels like you’re the only two people in the stadium, then the cheers hit. Loud. Whistles, shouting, the crowd going wild around you.

You blink, remembering where you are, and pull back quickly. Your chest rises in a quick, shaky breath you hope he doesn’t notice, face flushing as embarrassment creeps up your neck.

"Whooo!" Olivia leaps up, nearly tipping her cup, arms flailing in celebration. "Way to go!"

Robby is absolutely no help either. He lets out a long, piercing whistle from the other side.

"Fuck off," your voice comes out softer than you meant to, still a little breathless, shoving Olivia lightly. Jack huffs out a quiet laugh beside you.

You glance at him. He’s already looking at you again, a little flushed, his hand still half-raised like he forgot to put it down. Neither of you says anything, but for a moment it looks like he’s about to.

He doesn’t.